WORDWATCHERS NEWS
Summer 2009
A productive summer was had by the
group this year. John has had fantastic success with his online story for
the Oolite gaming community - amassing over 4000 hits by readers of his
story "Lazarus". You can read it here: [http://aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=6103]
John
is also in negotiations with "Johnny Rocket" author, John
Chapman, regarding his contribution to a version of the story for older
children, and to the website for the books. [http://www.jonnierocket.com/]
New member Andrew continued to upload sections of his novel "Moths in
the Dust" to his website [http://sites.google.com/a/ecpc.biz/andrew-hood/Home].
You can read and comment on his work, and look at samples of his beautiful
stone masonry.
Katherine was hard at work on the final draft of "Quietly
Shining", now re-titled "The Legacy", for a revised
publication date of June, 2010. The final draft is now in and bound proofs
are due to arrive from Orion any day now!
Charlotte finished the first draft of "The Apothecary's
Daughter" - well done, Charlotte! An epic story of love, loss, and
the harsh realities of seventeenth century life set in London in the year
of the plague, it was thoroughly enjoyed by the group. Following group
feedback, and a detailed reader's report from the Romantic Novelists'
Association, Charlotte is now at work on a second draft of the book, which
is surely destined for publication.
Charlotte
Betts' short story 'Vivaldi and Violets' is included in "Loves me,
Loves me not" which has now been published and is in the shops. The
mass market paperback will come out in February 2010 ready for Mother's
Day.
"Loves me, Loves me not" includes forty stories by authors including Joanna Trollope, Katie Fforde, Carole Mathews, Sophie King, Jane Wenham-Jones, Liz Fielding, Judy Astley and Adele Parks.
The Summer Short Story Competition, the theme of which was to take a
famous book title and write an entirely different interpretation of it,
was won by Brian with his story, "The Children of the Corn". One
of the groups' longest participating members, this was Brian first short
story victory, so congratulations to him! The results were announced at
the annual summer garden party in August. A good time - and a lot of good
food - was had by all!
Second place went to Sarah, for her take on "A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man"; and third place to Julian for "All Quiet on the
Western Front".
February News:
An enjoyable February meeting was held early in the month, with readings from members' current works open for comment and discussion. It being her third meeting, Abbie Todd was formally accepted into the group - welcome, Abbie!
Later in the month came the winter social, which was held at Cafe Uno in Newbury town centre. The conversation was fabulous, the food less so; the main aim of the evening being to announce the winners of the winter 2008 short story competition, and generally to celebrate a great six months of writing!
The subsidiary competition of matching story to author proved tricky this time around, with only Charlotte doing anything like well by correctly matching five of us to our stories. Many congratulations to the writers of the winning stories - who get swish certificates and, more importantly, kudos!
First place - Jonathan, for "Butterfly's Wings" Second place to Katherine, for "Rip Tides" Third place to Charlotte, for "Danny and the Magic Tooth."
February Update: Good news and bad:
Brian will shortly be presenting his novel "The Lion and the Asp", recently published via YouWriteOn.com, to the West Berkshire Writers group. Well done, Brian!
Katherine got a taste of life as a published writer at the Annual Orion Author party, held at the the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. During a glam and nerve-wracking evening, networks were forged, champagne was drunk, and the odd celebrity was spotted!
Sadly, our founder member, former chairman and current short story champion, Jonathan, has decided to take a break from the group. Due to a combination of logistics (Jonathan recently moved to the Isle of Wight!) and requiring space and time to reflect upon his writing and the direction in which he would like it to go, Jonathan feels that the time has come to step back from WordWatchers. He will be sadly missed within the group, and we very much hope that he will rejoin us in the not too distant future.
A Review of 2008
2008 was both a good and a difficult year for various members of WordWatchers, as some members struggled to find the time to write within the constraints of daily life, even as public exposure of the group’s work was on the increase, starting early in the year with the Winter 2007 short story winner, The Cuckoo, by Katherine, also winning joint second place in the Chapter One Promotions International Short Story Competition. The story will be published in their anthology in 2010.
John and Jonathan continued their excellent Blogs for the Newbury Weekly News, despite the fact that Jonathan upped sticks and moved to the Isle of Wight in the spring. The move precipitated a change in organisation for the group. Jonathan had previously held the role of chair and minute taker, but with his attendance slightly less assured than before, he understandably stepped down. The chair and the minute taking now passes alphabetically through the group on a monthly basis; a simple scheme that has proved surprisingly tricky for such an intelligent bunch of people!
The summer short story competition, on the theme of “Death” was won by perennial champion Charlotte, with her excellent piece Absolution.
In the Autumn we welcomed a new member, Abbie; and an ever elusive publishing deal was finally won by an ecstatic Katherine, who signed a two book deal with Orion for her recently completed novel, Quietly Shining. The book is due for release in summer 2010. As the year drew to a close, Brian and Pam also published their novels, The Lion and the Asp and Auntie Pru’s Legacy respectively, via the YouWriteOn.com free publishing scheme. The books are available to buy from Amazon.co.uk and look great!
Overall, a fantastic 2008! Well done to the whole group for your continued efforts and the creation of some excellent writing.
January
2009 – News
The group ushered in the New Year with the submission of the winter short story competition entries, on the theme of “Power”. Scoring and reviewing will now commence, and may the best WordWatcher win…
We used the January meeting to review the past year, give officer’s reports, assess our individual goals for 2009 and discuss what works best for the group during the monthly meetings. The overall verdict seemed to be that reading our work aloud for group critique, as well as submitting longer written pieces for review, was most helpful to everybody, and that we’d do a lot more of it this year. Even public speaking-phobic Katherine pledged to read aloud at some point!
News Update – more WordWatchers publishing success!
Charlotte
Betts' short story 'Vivaldi and Violets' has been selected to be published
in the Romantic Novelists' Association's 50th Anniversary Anthology. The
anthology title is to be LOVES ME, LOVES ME NOT and the hardback is
scheduled for publication in Sept/Oct 2009 in time for
Christmas. The mass market paperback will come out in February 2010 ready
for Mother's Day.
LOVES
ME, LOVES ME NOT includes forty stories by authors including Joanna
Trollope, Katie Fforde, Carole Mathews, Sophie King, Jane Wenham-Jones,
Liz Fielding, Judy Astley and Adele Parks.
WORDWATCHERS ON THE RADIO
On August 2nd. Jonathan and John were interviewed by Radio Berkshire about the Wordwatchers group. To hear how it went, click on this link or <right click/save target as> to download the mp3 file.
We have also added two new short stories to the web; the winner of the Newbury Wordwatchers Summer short story competition, "Before the Monsoons come" and "Secrets" both by Charlotte Betts
