Greenacre Writers Round up of 2013

Wishing all our followers a very Happy Christmas

 and a peaceful and joyous 2014

Greenacre Writers has had another busy year, with the year kicking off with a 6-session ‘Start That Novel’ course, led by Rosie Canning, with one session tutored by Dr Josie Pearse and another by Alex Wheatle. The course covered planning a novel, developing plot, characterisation, dialogue, point of view, first chapter, as well as giving participants feedback on their writing.

April saw the publication of Greenacre Writers Anthology Vol 2, with its launch at Cafe Buzz in North Finchley. One of our winning authors, Amy Flinders, was able to attend the launch to receive her prize. Several GW members who contributed stories read extracts aloud to those who came along to help us celebrate. We enjoyed the hospitality from Café Buzz owner, Helen Michaels, who plied us with coffee and cake! For more info click here.

Hot on the heels of the launch was the second Greenacre Writers Literary Festival. From a single event the previous year, it had grown to four; two workshops led by Miriam Halahmy and Josie Pearse, a Spoken Word event at Friern Barnet Community Library and the main event at Trinity Church Centre. Our four guest speakers were Sarah Harrison, Leigh Russell, CJ Flood and Gina Blaxill who gave us entertaining talks and readings. Members of GW also read extracts from their work. The day was rounded off with a lively panel discussion on Truth and Fiction with guest speakers and Alex Wheatle. Moderator was Allen Ashley who kept the passionate writers in line. For more info see here.

The festival launched our third short story competition and we were delighted that Alex Wheatle agreed to be our judge. Our first entry came within days of the launch with the last coming in at a minute before the deadline! The winners were announced in November and the third anthology is now underway.

Our members have been busy with their writing and we are always pleased when they achieve success.

Katie Alford was awarded a prize for her short story competition entry written in the style of a traditional Japanese folklore tale. It will be included in our forthcoming anthology.  

Lindsay Bamfield won a flash fiction competition in Writing Magazine and was shortlisted in the Chudleigh Phoenix short story competition and Flash 500. One of her flash fiction pieces was published in The Best of Café Lit 2012 and she had a 100-worder entitled ‘Gone’ published on the Café Lit website.

Helen Barbour has had great feedback on her very successful blog 'The Reluctant Perfectionist' about living with OCD to tie in with her novel whose main character has this condition. See link to Helen's blog to the right.

Rosie Canning had a 100 word flash fiction ‘Uncoupled’ published on the Café Lit website. She led a writing retreat at St Katharine's, Parmoor where writers were thoroughly spoilt while they got on with their writing. See here for the 2014 Spring Retreat. Once again, she was a reader for Radio Two’s 500 Words competition for children under 13. A preview of her forthcoming publication Occupied and Opened - the story of Friern Barnet Library was held in the library on the 5th September - the book will be published early in 2014. Rosie will also have a chapter in Steering the Mothership: The Complexities of Mothering by Lisa Cherry due to be published on Mother's Day, 30th March 2014. 

Linda Dell published her novel Earthscape, a Long Way from Home, a sci-fi, romance, adventure. One of her short stories was selected for A Wish for Christmas, a book of Christmas stories published by Alfie Dog. She has been approached by a New York publisher, Skyhorse, regarding a book on the A-Z of Aphrodisiacs which will be out next year.

Anna Meryt published a book of poems, Heartbroke. She facilitated and performed in a recent poetry event at The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green.

Wendy Shillam has regularly published chapters of her online novella The Author’s Song. The link to Wendy's online novella is on the right.

Plans are well underway for next year’s literary festival which has been renamed The Finchley Literary Festival and will be held from 24th to 31st May 2014. Watch this space.

Our three regular groups continue to meet regularly and all our members are busy with their works in progress. We look forward to more achievements next year.