Monday 1 January 2018

Greenacre Writers Round-up of 2017

Greenacre Writers has had another busy year, in April Ingrid Jendrzejewski, ran a flash fiction workshop ‘Writing the Iceburgs Tops’. The course covered how we can craft floes of compressed prose that may look tiny on the page but still have the power to sink ships.

Josie Pearse, of Pearse & Black, ran a Sex Scenes Workshop which proved very popular. We looked at what makes sex scenes work or not; sex as an aspect of relationship between your novel’s characters; and sex as plot development - including the implications of writing about non-consensual sex. There were giggles and double-entendres and lots of fun.

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

Lindsay Bamfield, joint founder of GW, has had quite a few writing successes this year including, the Great British Write Off (flash fiction) longlisting in Reflex Fiction (flash), winning Senior Travel Writing competition, winning Hysteria 2017 short story comp, and inclusion in Stories for Homes 2. She says: “[It’s] my best writing year yet. Though I haven't actually done much writing this year!”

Anna Meryt was joint editor for Highgate Poets 28th anthology Naming the Clouds and organised a launch evening of music and poetry at The Big Green Bookshop in April. To mark the Highgate Poet's 40th Birthday in November, Anna organised an evening of poetry and music. In December, her new book Memoir Writing. How to tell a story from your life, was published.

Rosie Canning was 
longlisted in two competitions, Reflex Fiction and The Casket of Fictional Delights. One of her short stories was included in a podcast. She also received various awards, one for a flash fiction conference and others for her research into care leavers.

Some of us had fun at Halloween when a friend of ours, Richard Reeve asked us to do some ghostly readings for at his new Micro Pub The Little Green Dragon in Palmers Green. Anna read a lovely poem about a Spriggan, inspired by a Greenacre Walk along the disused railway to Finsbury Park.

2017 was a year when Allen Ashley focused on poetry, flash fiction, micro fiction (anything below 100 words) and songs. He had published a whole range of the above in places like “Speculative 66”, “The Fenland Reed”, “BFS Horizons”, “101 Fiction”, “Dime Show Review” and the many Christopher Fielden writing challenges on his website. In terms of songs, Roger Tichborne and Allen, brought three new songs “Her Question”, “Old Bones” and “Espresso Soho” into The False Dots live repertoire. Their debut album is scheduled for February 2018 release.

Mr Greenacres and Rosie Canning organised six Greenacre Walks many of which had a railway theme starting with A Branch Line Walk in February, Highgate to Highbury Railway Walk in April, Disused Railway from Mill Hill to Edgware in June, Walk the Nicky Line in July, Walk the Alban Way in October and the Judges Walk in November. Mr Greenacres also organised a walk for the UTA. If you’d like to be added to his list of walkers, email: mikegee1967@gmail.com

Our regular groups continue to grow and blossom. Helen Barbour, a member of some years left the group and moved to Derby to be near her parents who both have dementia. We wish her well. And also sending our good wishes to James Connelly who found that with work now sending him around the UK, he could not make the meetings regularly. We welcomed new members: Deborah Freeman, Emma Levin, Vasundra Tailor and Tricia Atkin.

Finish That Novel2
FTN 2 meets the third Monday of every month
This group is for writers aiming for publication and working on a novel, memoir or autobiography. (Full)

Writing Workshop
Writers Workshop meets every six weeks on a Tuesday
This group is for writers working on short stories, novels, and autobiography or memoir. (1 vacancy)

Writers Meet-up
Meets the first Saturday of every month in Finchley
10.15-Midday, Write for 40mins, have tea, write for 40 mins.
Email greenacrewriters@gmail.com for the address. (All welcome)

Allen Ashley continues to run six successful creative writing groups – Novel Focus Group; fiction and poetry groups in Barnet, Enfield and Alexandra Park; a Distance (email) group; and the advanced science fiction and fantasy group Clockhouse London Writers. Anyone interested in joining / attending one of these groups should contact Allen directly on:
allenashley-writer@hotmail.co.uk

Finally we had some wonderful conversations with writers including Claire Fuller, Allan Jenkins, Jane Rogers, Sarah Hilary, Stephanie Butland, Jason Hewitt, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Leone Ross, Sheena Kamal, Ruth Hogan, and Dreda Say Mitchell to mention just a few.

We look forward to more achievements next year -

Wishing all our followers a peaceful and joyous 2018

Follow us on Twitter: @GreenacreWriter

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