11th January 2022: 

Glenda Young, author of the recently published novel ‘Murder at the Seaview Hotel’ will be in attendance.  She won’t be running a ‘masterclass’ as such but is keen to meet with us all and Dorinda is sure she will be happy to take questions on her writing and publishing process.  Her website is here.

Announce Arthur Hastings Competition and theme.

8th February 2022:

The meeting in February will be in two parts.

Part one:

My funny (?) Valentine.  Are all Valentines funny? Are all roses red? Do all love stories have a happy ending?

Please bring Valentine-themed writing to share – poems, limericks, flash fiction (or short fiction).

Part two:

SWC going forward.  What do we want for the circle, our website. Ways to encourage membership. Ideas about speakers.  What do we want SWC to be and achieve in the year.

Please prepare biographies for the SWC website if you want to be included on that – you can bring these to the meeting or email them to Julie for updating to our website.  A photo would be great too.

Closing date for Arthur Hastings Competition.

8th March 2022:

12th April 2022:

Session: Sharing our writing strengths. What skills do we have (in particular), what do we struggle with? How can we share and learn from each other to improve our writing skills?

(Reminder: Next session will be research based – with a twist! Write a factual piece about an everyday object but EITHER write about a boring object and make it sound exciting OR write about an exciting object and make it sound as dull as can be)

Announce Nikki Barker Competition.

10th May 2022: 

READ THROUGH OF RESEARCH PIECES

Writing craft: Which approach did you choose and why? What, in particular, made your piece sound dull/exciting? What can be learned from how we approached this task?

Closing date for Nikki Barker Competition.

14th June 2022:

READ THROUGH AND RESULTS: Nikki Barker Competition

12th July 2022:

9th August 2022:  

Poetry workshop with Felix Hodcroft

Announce Shirley Waite Poetry Competition

13th September 2022:

WRITE FOR THE NIGHT – tonight will be a mini writing retreat during which we will write, write, write! (and have a cuppa midway).

In September 1666 The Great Fire of London began in Pudding Lane. Perhaps ‘FIRE!’ will be your writing inspiration tonight or perhaps you will instead focus on work in progress.

Closing date Shirley Waite Poetry Competition

11th October 2022:                       

Celebrating Poetry:

RESULTS of Shirley Waite Poetry Competition.  General Commentary from the competition judge followed by members read through of their winning entries. 

Break.

Writing craft: Rhythm, sentence length, cliché, imagery – what fiction writing can learn from poetry.

8th November 2022:

13th December 2021

Christmas reflections.  What I have learned about writing this year … and mince pies!