The Cleckheaton Writers Group met yesterday where we welcomed new member Sarah to the Group. Mandy, Martijn, Kathy, John R, myself and Sarah were in attendance, John L, Neil, Andy, Laura, Dawn, Pippa and Pauline having passed on their apologies.
The minutes from the last meeting were agreed and then we introduced ourselves to Sarah and talked about the kind of writing we each did and what we were working on at the moment. Sarah has written all her life but been writing seriously for 6 years and she is working on her second novel (she also writes poetry and short stories).
Mandy started off the WIP updates, she is now 10k into her novel and several of her short stories have been shortlisted in various competitions recently which is fantastic news. Kathy has been working on a short story that she brought to share for feedback. John has been working more on scenes/dialogue for his novel and I have written a flash fiction story.
I read out Neil's shared piece for feedback, a short story that Neil entered into the Writers and Artists competition entitled The Last Goodbye. The group agreed that this was a great premise with a touching ending but that it needed quite a bit of editing. The group agreed to pass on their feedback individually via email as Neil was unable to attend the meeting.
Kathy then shared her short story which was well received. Sarah loved the use of dialect and John and I enjoyed the humour. We all agreed that the ending needed to be made a bit more clear, but that it was an unexpected twist. Mandy encouraged Kathy to send it to a short story competition once the editing has been completed.
I then informed the group about the current and upcoming writing Festivals including Huddersfield Literature Festival (including details of the two events I attended at the weekend - blog post reviews to follow), Headingley Literature Festival and Leeds Trinity Writers Festival. Sarah recommended the Festival of Writing in York that runs in September and told the group about a Bronte themed competition in Writing Magazine (a story featuring a character from a Bronte novel).
Those members of the Group that had not passed on their availability for the proposed trip to the Houses of Parliament did so and it was agreed that we would need a timeframe to work with for organising this.
Martijn and Sarah discussed what the proposed new Library opening hours would mean for them.
The next meeting will take place on Monday 21 March 6-8pm at Cleckheaton Library and both feedback sessions are available.
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