25 Monday Jul 2016
Posted in News, Short Stories, Tindal Street Fiction Group, Writers, Writers Group, writing
Tags
Alan Beard, Birmingham, Charles Wilkinson, Flash Fiction, short stories, Tindal Street Fiction Group, uk, Writers, writing
The Tindal Street Fiction Group have been mighty busy:
Stories accepted: Alan Beard has a story ‘November’ forthcoming in Spelk – in November. Sooner than that, Charles Wilkinson has a story coming out in the next issue of Black Stati…
Source: Summer round up
21 Thursday Jan 2016
Two fine members of TSFG flying the flag for local authors.
Mick Scully and Fiona Joseph will be appearing alongside Luke Kennard and Catherine O’Flynn on February 23rd @6:30-8pm. More details here:http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=2748
08 Tuesday Apr 2014
Tags
Benjamin Zephaniah, Birmingham Literature Festival, birmingham uk, Carol Ann Duffy, Cindy George, Fiona Joseph, Helen Cross, Literary map of the midlands, New Brochure, Rochi Rampal, Room204, Support for Writers, uk, West Midlands, William Gallagher, William Shakespeare, Write On!, writing, Writing West Midlands, young writers
I’ve been very lucky to have been involved with Writing West Midlands over recent years. They are a fine bunch of human beings who live to promote literature in the West Midlands region.
I was approached by them to see if I’d mind being included in their new brochure, this would include being photographed by a professional photographer. Of course I didn’t mind.
I’ve been involved with a number of projects through Writing West Midlands and run one of their many Write On! Young Writers groups. If you are a writer based in the West Midlands you should get in touch with them. Anyway, the brochure is now out. Here’s the cover:
You can just spot me on the left amongst the grime of the old library.
Inside the brochure there a wonderful overview of all the incredible work that the Writing West Midlands team does across the region and across all the possible formats that writing can take. There’s a great map of the region, beautifully put together by Kerry Leslie, that pinpoints some of the outstanding talent that has come from the area. This includes J.R.R. Tolkien, who used to live just down the road from me, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jonathan Coe, Carol Ann Duffy, John Osborne and of course William Shakespeare. Information on the Birmingham Literature Festival, Write On! Young Writers, The New Library of Birmingham and tons more.
The brochure is beautifully put together with great photography, a cool layout and printed on pleasingly thick paper.
Inside there is a section on local writers that WWM work with and there are brief interviews with: William Gallagher, Deborah Alma, Cindy George, Fiona Joseph, Rochi Rampal, Helen Cross and me.
My page can be read below. Just click on the picture and it’ll open at a readable size.
Cheers.
Scary man in cool coat.
18 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in comissions, News, Short Stories, Writers Group, writing
This summer (2013) I was commission by the West Midlands Readers Network to write a short story for a library book group. It turned out that the book group in Coleshill Library were not interested but that the writers group that was also based there was.
I went over in late July and met the group. They were a friendly bunch who made me very welcome. I talked a little bit about the type of things I write and they told me about the stories that they were interested in; it was quite a range. We had crime stories, historical fiction, satire, science fiction, comedy and so on. I made lots of notes.
It would be impossible, in the time I had and the amount of words available (2000,) to write something that covered everything they wanted. As it was I wrote two stories, both set in Coleshill. I couldn’t decide which was the story for them, which was the story that would best please them and cover some of what they asked for. In the end I asked Roz. Roz Goddard is a fine poet, short story writer and she runs the West Midlands Readers Network; her advice was bang on. She said use the best one.
I knew which was the best story I was just worried it wasn’t right for the group.
I visited the Coleshill Writers Group last Monday and read them the story. They liked it and had some excellent questions for me afterwards. If you’re near Coleshill and are interested in writing you should get down there.
If you’d also like to hear my story entitled Night Swimming, then come join me and a whole host of others at the New Birmingham Library on Monday the 2nd of December, it’ll be great.
