We’ve had a busy year and are proud of what we‘ve achieved!
The year began with entries coming in for our our first short story competition. Numbers increased as the closing date of 31st March loomed, with a flurry in the last two days. We received stories from all over the country but many came from North London owing to word of mouth. Reading every entry began in earnest for long-listing the best 25. We then went through these in detail - with a few reasoned arguments - to select the short-list of 10, ending up with 12 for our judge, Lianne Kolirin, to make the final decision. The winners were announced on 9th May. Congratulations to all the selected entrants.
Work began on the first Greenacre Writers Anthology which was published in September 2011. Comprising the six winning stories from the competition and nine stories from our Greenacre Writers membership, it is a mixture of story genres and we’ve had some great feedback. If you have a copy, please let us know which were your favourite stories and if you would like a copy, please contact us.
Our Creative Writing workshops have continued, with the first, ‘Have You Lost the Plot?’ in February followed by two in May, which were part of ‘Trinity in May’ Arts Festival in North Finchley. ‘Ways into Writing’ and ‘Life Writing’ both attracted a number of new faces to our workshops some of whom have become paid up members. Our most recent event was the ‘Short Story’ workshop in November.
The regular groups have continued to thrive, resulting in Finish That Novel having a waiting list so we launched the second FTN in September making a total of four groups - the two novel groups, a short story group and the Memoir and Autobiography Club.
Our members have enjoyed writing successes with both founder members, Lindsay Bamfield and Rosie Canning, having work published in Mslexia. Lindsay also won second place in a Writers News short story competition with her story Sad Old Man that she had asked fellow members to critique, as well as winning a competition for her novel’s pitch. Anna Meryt’s poem Bulawayo won first prize in Excel for Charity’s poetry competition. Liz Goes has been busy promoting her second novel The Cosmopolites, while Linda Louisa Dell published and has been marketing her book of short stories The Story Tree.
It has been a rewarding year and here’s to hoping for continued Greenacre Writers’ success to continue in 2012.
All of the books are available through Amazon or directly from the authors. See our links.
