The sun is shining (we hope), birds are singing, flowers are flowering — and writers are busily writing. If you can bear to tear yourself from your keyboard, why not come along to the cafe at the Winchester Arc (also known as the library) to meet new writer friends in a relaxed setting, or just enjoy coffee and cake.
Tell us about your your nagging plot problems and misbehaving characters, your non-fiction or poetry — we’re all writers!
Members and non-members welcome.
These informal meetings aren’t hosted or organised in any way, but Catherine will attempt to attend and bring a (hopefully) easily visible 30cm artist’s mannequin (see image below) to help you find the group.
For these months we’ve picked some dates that aren’t Tuesdays (shock) to allow people who can’t do Tuesdays to attend. So please make a note of the days and dates below, and let us know what suits you best.
Monday, March 20th 10:30am
Wednesday, April 19th 10:30am
Friday, May 26th 10:30am
If you have a request for a different day, time, or venue, or any questions, email inquiries @ hampshirewriterssociety.co.uk.
Join us at 7:30pm at the University of Winchester, Winton Room 5, when our main speaker with be local author Claire Gradidge, and our guest speaker is Sara Gangai. Results of the February competition, judged by Claire Gradidge, will be announced, along with the details for the March competition.
Talks are free for members. Non-members are also welcome — tickets £10, students £2. No booking required.
Blending Fact and Fiction – writing WWII crime fiction set in Hampshire
Claire Gradidge was born and brought up in Romsey. After a career as, among other things, a nurse and a school librarian, she went to the University of Winchester, where she graduated in 2009 with a first class honours BA in Creative Writing.
In January 2018, she was awarded a PhD in creative writing. The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox, written as the creative element of her PhD study, went on to win the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition.
The third book in the Josephine Fox series, A Conflict of Interests, was published in October, 2022.
In her talk, Claire will discuss how memory and old maps, family stories and local history helped her create the Josephine Fox mystery series.
An Associate Lecturer on the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Winchester, Claire also leads a local Adult Education class. She has had short fictions and poetry published in South, Orbis and Vortex. An active member of the creative writing community, she is a founder member of Chandlers Ford Writers and participates in local writing events, including as a judge for poetry and prose competitions.
Find Claire on Twitter (@ClaireGradidge) or online at
Sara Gangai was the Event Manager and then Director of the Winchester Writers’ Festival before starting Writers’ Weekend when the university decided to close the Writers’ Festival.
In 2022, after ten years with the Writers’ Festival and Writers’ Weekend, she passed the torch to the team at I AM in Print so that she could focus on her passion: interviewing and capturing life histories on video.
Her interest in oral histories began while she was studying for her MA in Regional and Local History and Archaeology at the University of Winchester. She knew that it was common to record people’s recollections for academic research, but felt that every one of us had an interesting and unique story to tell.
She began SharedMemories.uk to give people the opportunity to tell their life stories so that they can be shared with family and friends and treasured for generations to come.
She will be speaking about the value of recording your life story and the power of authentic voices and memories to inform your writing.
Join us at 7:30pm at the University of Winchester, Winton Room 5, when our main speaker will be author Nick Cook (presenting by video) and our guest speaker, children’s author Yarrow Townsend. Results of the February competition, judged by Yarrow Townsend, will be announced, along with the details for the March competition.
Nick Cook
After a long and successful career in the video games industry, Nick Cook turned to writing science fiction.
Nick has many interests, from space exploration and astronomy to travelling the world. He has flown light aircraft and microlights, an experience he used as research for Cloud Riders. He’s always loved to cook, but then you’d expect it with his surname. His writing in many ways reflects his curiosity about the world around him. He loves to let his imagination run riot to pose the question: What if?
Yarrow Townsend
Yarrow Townsend spent her childhood among the moss, oak and heather of the New Forest. After working as a teacher, and then as a stablehand, Yarrow completed an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University, before returning to the forest to work for the RSPB. Always in search of ways to be closer to the outdoors, Yarrow now lives on a narrowboat, travelling the canals with her garden on the roof. The Map of Leaves is inspired by her life by the woods and the water, and by her own parents’ herb books. Follow her: @yarrowtownsend
Celebrate the start of a new year of writing by coming along to the cafe at the Winchester Arc (also known as the library) to make new writer friends in a relaxed setting, or just enjoy coffee and cake. Members and non-members welcome.
These informal meetings aren’t hosted or organised in any way, but Catherine will attempt to attend and bring a (hopefully) easily visible 30cm artist’s mannequin (see image below) to help you find the group.
Bring your New Year’s writing resolutions, goals and challenges for mutual inspiration and encouragement!
Dates:
Tuesday January 24th 10:30AM
Tuesday February 21st 10:30AM
If you have a request for a different day, time, or venue, or any questions, email inquiries @ hampshirewriterssociety.co.uk.
Join us at the University of Winchester, Winton Room 5, where our main speaker will be author Nate Crowley and our special guest is children’s poet Val Harris. We’ll also have the results of the January competition and announcement of the competition for February.
Talks are free for members. Non-members £10, students £2.
Playing with other people’s toys: the pros and cons of work for hire writing
Having written novels both with traditional publishers and as a freelancer for the Warhanmer 40,000 IP, Nate Crowley makes a practical comparison of his experiences in these two very different professional models, and offers his thoughts on making the best of both worlds
Nate Crowley is an author, interactive fiction consultant, videogames journalist and public speaker. Nate has worked as a journalist, a publisher, a teacher and an aquarium guy. He has a degree which involved all sorts of stuff but basically ended up being about the history of natural history. He enjoys a good trip to the zoo, creating feasts, and staring into the wasteland behind his house. He loves to talk about beasts and SF and the sea, plus history and films and all kinds of nerd stuff.
Special Guest: Val Harris
Val will talk about writing and publishing in general and her own journey to writing poetry for children, why it’s important, how much it is appreciated by schools, and how little exposure it receives from booksellers.
Val Harris is a children’s poet and has had her poems published in several children’s publications including:The Caterpillar, Paperbound Magazine, The Toy Press, Little Thoughts Press, and she has multiple poems flying on the Dirigible Balloon, an online poetry resource for schools and individuals. Val has been writing for many years. She has published several adult books. She is passionate about poetry for children. It is an invaluable tool for helping children to understand language, as well as giving them confidence to write and to express themselves through poetry.
Join us on December 13th at the University of Winchester, Winton Room 5, where our main speaker is author and writing teacher Susmita Bhattacharya. She’ll be talking about her route to becoming a published author.
Come along from 6:45pm, when some of our members will have tables outside Winton Room 5 to show off their published books, and will be happy to discuss and sell their work.
The talk starts at 7:30pm.
Talks are free for members. Non-members £10, students £2.
My Writing Journey: An unconventional route to publication
Did I dream of becoming a published writer? No, because it did not occur to me that such a thing was possible for an ordinary girl growing up in Mumbai. After graduating with a degree in graphic design, and sailing on oil tankers for three years, I settled down in Cardiff, and the world of writing opened up for me. Let me share with you my early experiences of writing and how I became a published writer and hopefully inspire you in your writing journey.
Susmita Bhattacharya is an Indian-born writer. Her debut novel, The Normal State of Mind (Parthian, 2015) was long-listed at the Mumbai Film Festival, 2018. Her short story collection, Table Manners (Dahlia Publishing, 2018) won the Saboteur Award for Best Short Story Collection (2019) and was a finalist for the Hall & Woodhouse DLF Prize, 2019 and has been featured on BBC Radio 4. She teaches creative writing at Winchester University and facilitated the ArtfulScribe Mayflower Young Writers programme in Southampton. She was also Writer-in-Residence at the Word Factory, London in 2021. You can find her on Twitter: @Susmitatweets
Join us at 7:30pm at the University of Winchester, Winton Room 5, for talks from our main speaker, author Clare Whitfield, with guest speaker David Keighley.
Talks are free for members of the HWS. Visitor tickets £10 (£2 for students).
Getting noticed in the Slush Pile
Clare will talk about her journey to getting published. It’s a very difficult industry to break into and she will talk about how she secured a two book deal and agent on submission and the process from contract to publishing a debut novel, and what to expect.
Clare Whitfield was born in Morden in 1978 (at the bottom of the Northern line) in Greater London. After university she worked at a publishing company before going on to hold various positions in buying and marketing. She now lives in Hampshire with her family. Her debut novel, People of Abandoned Character, won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and was also short listed for the HWA Debut Award, and was also published by Head of Zeus. Her second novel, The Gone and the Forgotten, is out June 9th 2022.
Our guest speaker is David Keighley, and the results of the November ‘Pitch your Novel’ competition will be announced.
Members and non-members are welcome to come along to the cafe at the Winchester Arc (also known as the library) to make new writer friends in a relaxed setting, or just enjoy coffee and cake.
These informal meetings aren’t hosted or organised in any way — if you want to attend, just turn up. To ease identification, carry a notepad and pen, or a book (bonus points if you are the author).
Dates:
Tuesday September 20th 10:30AM
Thursday October 20th 2:30PM
Tuesday, November 22nd 10:30AM
If you have a suggestion for a different venue, or any questions, email inquiries @ hampshirewriterssociety.co.uk.
The first meeting of the 2022/2023 season is September 13th, in Winton Building 5, 7:30pm.
The main speaker is Judith Heneghan.
Fact into Fiction
Novelists make things up. For some writers, this includes constructing a fictional narrative from the raw material of experience. Using her novel Snegurochka as a starting point, Judith explores the pitfalls and pleasures of writing fiction that draws on real-life events.
Judith Heneghan is a writer, programme leader for the MA Creative Writing at the University of Winchester, and a mentor with Jericho Writers. She has written over 60 books for young people, and her first novel for adults, Snegurochka (Salt, 2019) was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford travel writing awards. She has recently completed a second novel set in upstate New York.
Barbara Large Memorial Award
Anthony Ridgway will present this year’s Barbara Large Memorial Award. To keep you in suspense, you will find out who the worthy winner is on the evening. Anthony Ridgway was the award winner in 2019 and has kindly agreed to make the presentation.
On Tuesday, August 16th in the cafe at the Arc, Winchester (also known as Winchester Library), come along from 10:30am to meet fellow members of the Hampshire Writers Society. Discuss your work-in-progress (or your writers block) and make new writer friends in a relaxed setting, or just enjoy coffee and cake.
Though primarily aimed at members, non-members are welcome to come and find out about the society.
If you’re planning to attend, please email inquiries @ hampshirewriterssociety.co.uk — you don’t have to, but it’s nice to have an idea of numbers. And if you’d love to come, but can’t make it this time, it would also be nice to hear from you, in case we run this again.
