Minutes of Scribblers meeting held on Tuesday 04 July 2017
Present: Cathy, Dick, Beryl, Anne, Mairead,
Di, Liliane, Gerry, Jim, Tony, Kay, Bridget and Dave. A warm welcome to Peter
and Ross who attended for the first time.
Apologies: Steve.
Business:
To
welcome both Peter and Ross to the Scribblers. Peter purchased a copy of
anthology at the Book Festival and then contacted us to ask to attend the
meeting. I believe he has self-published work in the past. Ross has just moved
from Woodbridge to Felixstowe and discovered us via the Library. He wrote and
produced a magazine whilst in the Caribbean.
Wishing
Steve a speedy recovery from his cycling accident.
Then
the Felixstowe Book Festival. Most Scribblers attended at least one session or
workshop and, overall, this year’s event seemed even better than earlier ones.
The Furneaux Suite location on the Sunday was really great value for money with
all sessions being either full or very well attended. The Orwell Writer’s
League opened up with ‘Creating a word bank,’ which was hosted by our good friend
Suzy Griffith followed up by the Microfiction Workshop which I facilitated.
Both these sessions had just the right number of participants and we certainly received
some excellent feedback. In our Hon. President Ruth Dugdall we had the perfect
organiser and hostess of the day’s events.
Thanks
to the kindness of Mairead a novel by Phil Rickman, ‘All of a Winter’s Night,’
was given as a prize in a draw for the writers in the Microfiction workshop. It
was won by Ray Trzaska.
Our
friend Morag a member for so long, attended on the Saturday whilst it was good
to meet up with Jane who was attending to the Lighthouse stall. Ironically I
had the offer of a free novel from Amazon by Jane Bailey and I thought she’d
kept that one quiet! Checking the author details it turned out to be another Jane.
Martin Ward attended the short story prize giving with his son who was
short-listed as one of the top entrants. Both Martin and Jane hope to resume
with Scribblers in the not too distant future.
Next,
our Anthology ‘Words.’ – Thanks to Cathy for collecting and organising both the
Orwell Writer’s Leagues and our own anthologies at the Festival. Thanks also to Stillwater Books who kindly accepted them on the bookstall and will also
sell them in their shop. We still have to
establish how many copies were sold over the two days but just seeing our
anthologies intermingled with novels by some very famous authors and
participants was quite pleasing. Cathy brought 30 along to our meeting tonight to cover a large order
of 20 whilst another eight were sold individually. Currently our remaining
stock is 35 plus however many Will has at Stillwater.
If you
would like a copy of ‘Words’ then please email me at scribblers.1@btinternet.com Reasonably priced at a fiver, we would
need to add postage and packaging to any postal orders. Details on request.
Thanks
as ever to Mairead for her treats, to Liliane for collecting the key and to Kay
for setting up the air conditioning again.
Now
for the homework, ‘The third house along …” With so many people in attendance
it was always going to be difficult fitting everyone in despite both Cathy and
Gerry leaving early but we made it!
The
stories were:
Di: Three
houses along.
Beryl: The
house.
Peter: Three doors along.
Jim: The man with no nose.
Kay: Third house along.
Dick:
Felixstowe and the Royal
Marines.
Tony: A walk in the green forest.
Bridget: Mothers and daughters.
Mairead: The castle walls.
Ross: The hurricane.
Dave: On the run.
Anne: The third house along.
Liliane: Don’t displease your personal saint.
Next meeting: This will be on Tuesday 18 July, when Kay
will read out an extract from her work for feedback and then the rest of us,
having drawn out a specific genre to write about, are asked to provide a story in
750-1,000 words.
The
meeting will start promptly at 7.30pm.
Until
then,
Keep
Scribbling!!!
