Newsletter

December  2011

November Meeting

As you will see from Joanne’s meeting notes, we have five new members in the group.  They are: Pauline Barnett, Nicky Bassnett, Ed Blundell, Gary Heap, and Janet Loverseed.   Each of them brought a high standard of writing to the group and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome them to Stockport Writers.

Members News

• Congratulations to Barbara for winning £50 first prize in a writing competition and having a story selected which may be published in Woman’s Weekly.
• Linda and Janet have both had poems selected for publication in the Best of Manchester Volume 2 which was launched on 1^st December 2011.  If you would like to purchase the poetry book or would like details of future competitions, their web site is http://www.puppywolf.co.uk/news/.  You can also subscribe to their newsletter via this site.
• Jim Palmer wrote to me about one of his students who has just won a mega £2,000 from The University of Chester Cheshire Prize for Literature.  As Jim says, “I think it makes a lot of things worthwhile – and also shows that if you don’t submit nothing will happen!” Details here :- http://www.chester.ac.uk/node/11030
• I had my first proper rejection last month!  I sent a poem to People’s Friend magazine which bounced back with a standard rejection letter by return of post!  My anguish was slightly calmed by having a letter published in “What’s On T.V” – for which I will receive the princely sum of £10.00. 

I hope I have covered everything – but please e mail me with your successes so I can share them with the group. 

Submissions Wanted

• People’s Friend Magazine is currently looking for submissions of short stories, serialised stories, poems, and children’s stories.  If you are interested please e mail me and I will send you their submission guidelines.
• Woman’s Weekly Magazine also looking for submissions.  See this web site for their submission guidelines. http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/family/471247/woman-s-weekly-fiction-guidelines
• See also The Waiting Room Mag (an American Publication). They replied to my enquiry that they are accepting submissions from January 2012   If you are interested their web site is www.thewaitingroommag.com

I have put a couple of links on our blog site to other sites about writing.  Many of these have information about submission guidelines, submissions wanted, and one even has a regular contribution from a woman’s magazine editor. 

Do you have information about useful web / blog sites that may help with our writing?  Drop me an e mail and let me know.  I will put them on our blog site.

December Meeting

Nigel handed out the empty Secret Santa envelopes at the November meeting.  Don’t forget to bring yours to the December meeting – hopefully filled with lots of ideas to prompt someone’s writing Our readings at the January meeting will be based on these prompts.

The December meeting is also our Christmas party.   No reading or writing at this meeting but just a chance to chat and get to know each other a bit  more. Can everyone bring some small snacks such as crisps; mince pies etc so we can have a buffet brunch.  And, maybe something to drink? I will bring some paper cups.

We will also be organising a voluntary collection for The Wellspring (which is a charity for the homeless) instead of sending each other Christmas Cards.  Last year we raised £22.00.

Stockport Library

Early in the New Year, I will be contacting Linda Paton at the library to finalise the arrangements for the National Library Day event on the 4^th February.  This involves us submitting work for display, running a writing workshop at the library, and advertising our group to new members.

We already have quite a few volunteers who have agreed to write something and help with the workshop on the 4^th but if you have not already been in touch with me and would like to be involved please will you let me know as soon as possible.  It would be nice if we could all meet up at the library, have a look round, and bounce some ideas around for how we would like to plan the day. Linda will make a room available for us to have a meeting in.

Linda Paton will also arrange for us to have a tour of the Heritage Library as this may give us some inspiration for our writing and, I think, she would like the writing workshop to be based around Stockport Heritage.  Even if you can’t make it on the 4^th  Feb, I think a tour of the Heritage Library would be very interesting. If you would like to take part in the tour please let me know.  I will try to arrange this for early January.

…. and finally

I subscribe to a couple of writing magazines and have just received the issues for January 2012.  They are full of advice for making New Year’s writing resolutions.  So what will yours be? 

Mine?  To write at least 500 words a day – the equivalent of a sheet of A4 paper a day. That’s 15000 words a month –nearly a whole children’s book ………

I hope you all have a lovely and peaceful Christmas and that 2012 brings more writing successes for the group.

See you on the 11^th December at 11:00 am

Jayne