We made it to the Daily Echo!
2 June 2014
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| Pan Whittington; The Right Worshipful The Mayor of Southampton, Cllr Ivan White; Penny Legg cut the cake |
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Writing Buddies in the Daily Echo!
Monday, 2 June 2014
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WRITING BUDDIES!
It was party time for us
at our May 2nd meeting. We celebrated our fifth birthday, with more than thirty
members at our regular venue, The Dolphin Mercure Hotel in Southampton. As we
were a larger group than usual, the hotel very kindly allocated a delightful
upstairs meeting room, one in which Jane Austen once danced the night away!
Penny, who with Pam
founded the flourishing group in 2009, treated us all to wine
and luscious cake, so it was quite an event. Even Catherine’s young twin girls
were able to join us!
Group News
Former policeman Jim
Brown’s talk on Murder in Southampton was to take place on May 7th
at Portswood Library.
Jimmy’s latest book for
The History Press, A 1940s Childhood, From Bomb Sites to Children’s Hour,
had just been launched, with a foreword by famous crime writer Peter Livesey.
Mo had given a reading
from A Blues for Shindig at the
Cockpit Theatre in London, and her next reading will be from her forthcoming new novel.
Jim Brown has a new book
out, Southampton's Lucky Jim: A County Borough Copper in the 50s and 60s.
Catherine has a story in
The Romaniac’s collection of stories and flash fiction, Romaniac Shorts.
The Romaniacs are members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA). Catherine
recently won a place on a very enjoyable writing course through the RNA.
Gerry, who now lives in
Alicante, belongs to a writing group there - Wordplay Writers’ Forum. Not long ago
the group won Writing Magazine’s Writers’ Group Award. Gerry recently published
his novel Farrell’s Last Case, and
offered members a free download. He is currently writing the sequel, Witches’
Mountain.
Lisa informed the group
that http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom
was accepting comedy scripts for the next few days.
Jacqueline and her
husband each entered the local Union Learning Centre short story competition;
results are not yet out.
Barbara Dynes has a new
book out, Masterclasses in Creative
Writing .
Barbara writes for Writers’ Forum and for The
Voice.
Robin is writing on
health and social care, and education. He edits and distributes the internet
newsletter The Voice, with articles on the written word from both reading and
writing perspectives. Several Writing Buddies have been interviewed by Josephine
for The Voice. The newsletter is free to receive by email; contact robin@robindynes.co.uk
Bill attends Southampton
Sight Writing Salon; he suggested Buddies might consider individual podcasts.
New member Margaret used
to write, and is back again now and keen to restart.
John has just released
an ebook of his poetry: Love Poems by JPF Goodman. (http://jpfgoodman.wordpress.com and
scroll down.) He read some of his work at the final day of the Ship to Shore
event at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, and was soon to read again at
Write Angle, an event in Petersfield. Podcasts of both these readings can be
seen on his blog as above.
General discussions
followed. These included whether we should do individual podcasts and who might
help with these. Lisa mentioned she had marketed a book she’d written under a
different name, promoting it in both names in social media. It was initially
offered free, and entered Amazon’s top 100 free books. She recommended low
pricing for better overall revenue.
Calvin runs Friends of
Portswood Library. He hopes the library will become a community hub including
for writers, and any members wanting to promote their books by readings or
launches can contact him at calvin@calvin-smith.co.uk
Several members had given talks or readings there already, and more are to
come.
Our forthcoming
exhibition at the Central Library was discussed. Members would jointly set up
the books, articles etc on Monday 12th May in time for the opening
by the mayor Councillor Ivan White at 2pm. The exhibition would close on the 17th.
Christine planned to make a celebration cake for the event and there would be
wine too.
Josephine then gave a
very helpful talk on administration for writers. She reminded us of the
importance of documenting every event and all income and expenditure, and
suggested ways of doing so. Questions followed and the group thanked Josephine
for her advice.
Writing Buddies will
meet again at The Dolphin Mercure Hotel, High Street, Southampton from 2 to 4pm
on Friday June 6th. The last half hour will include a talk by Lisa
on the topic of copyright.
Blog notes by Jacqueline Pye
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