Group Profile: Fylde Brighter Writers

Steve Brodie from Fylde Brighter Writers talks to the PrestonWN about his group, and their latest competition - open to all writers. Read on for details...

Fylde Brighter writers were formed in 2006 following the closure of a creative night school class we attended the previous year. We still wanted to write and to keep in touch so decided to form our own writing circle. Once we got our own website up and running, other writers contacted us and we have a healthy core of around ten and a number of occasional visitors and affiliates. After a nomadic couple of years wandering from venue to venue, we're now settled in the County Hotel pub in Lytham and meet every Thursday evening.

Three of our members, Jackie Blake, Lauren Huxley-Blythe and Christine Axon are featured in the latest Leaf anthology, 'Ada and more Nano Fiction' and Eleanor Broaders has a poem in 'Openings 26', the 2009 anthology of OU poets. Eleanor also has had poems published in many other anthologies. Karen Pailing has won poetry competitions in Writers News amongst many others. Steve Wilson set up the Lancashire Writers Blog and his 'Caught in the Act' is on the BBC Lancashire web pages. The rest of us gamely plug away.

We've just launched our latest competition, the snappily titled 'Fylde Brighter Writers Short Story and Poetry Competition 2010'. It's open to anyone anywhere apart from our members and our relatives and it also has an Open theme. The top Prizes are £200 for short stories up to 2,500 words and £100 for the poetry prize and there is no length limit to the poetry. No one has entered a saga yet. There are runners up prizes too and small but beautifully crafted trophies for the winners. It cost £5 per short story or £10 for three stories and £3 per poem or £5 for three. We have postal and on-line entry options and the closing date is 27th February 2010.

(if you're interested in entering this competition, there are more details and contact information via the Brighter Writers website, here)

We ran a successful competition in 2008. We judge it ourselves, gradually whittling down the entries to the top ten which we then read out, debate, argue and champion our favourites over a couple of evenings (with wine) until we arrive at our winners. It's a lot of work but we feel it helps create a proper identity for the writing circle, it shows us the standards we need to reach to win other competitions and it can be great fun to do.

Why join a Writing circle? I greatly admire people who can sit down and rattle off fabulous stories in isolation from the rest of the world but I find the support of a Writing Circle invaluable. For natural prevaricators (such as myself) it's a constant dig in the ribs because I need to write something every week to take with me otherwise questions are asked! Constructive critques by the members of work is also useful. We had one member who changed her writing style after being asked to try something different by another member and now writes in a beautiful languid atmospheric way that she didn't before. We all bring hints tips and competition ideas in with us to the meetings and the collective sharing of information is something that you couldn't get on your own.

We've also published a couple of books via Lulu. 'Girl on the Bridge', a story of a, well, a girl on a bridge, seen from the perspective of other people looking at her in a park. We wrote a chapter each in this and found it to be a great collective way to get a story written. We published our anthology 'Coming Around' last year. It contains our competition winners and a couple of pieces - stories or poems - from each of us. It's available, for £3.99, from Lulu.com, via our own website and from Amazon.com in the US. I'm not quite sure how it got there, I think Lulu put it forward!

We will be producing another anthology in 2010 following the competition. Lulu is a great way to get your work quickly and cheaply into print. we find, and we're impressed by the quality. A few of our people have produced their own work for family and friends on Lulu and I'd recommend it anyone.

PrestonWN is always pleased to hear from you about your groups, projects and publications. If you have news about competitions, writing or reading opportunities or you'd like us to promote your group, event, book or workshop, get in touch with us and let us know.

Word Soup-beside the Sea

Better late than never, but here we are (finally) with the write-up, review and film clips of our special Word Soup - commissioned by Blackpool Library Service and delivered by The Preston Writing Network for Word Pool - Blackpool's Literary Festival.

Many thanks go to our star performer - Ann Wilson, who travelled all the way from Barrow and fresh from an appearance on BBC Radio Cumbria - to help us celebrate National Poetry Day. With an engaging, lively performance featuring poems-a-plenty from her collection Synesthetic that stole the show and impressed the library staff as well as the audience, Ann certainly made an excellent impression again.

We're really looking forward to having Ann back in Preston again for a Word Soup Presents... on the 30th October with her colleague Keith Armstrong (more about this soon!). If you can't wait that long (and who could blame you?) you can listen to Ann perform some of her poetry from the comfort of your own front room, by clicking here.

Our other performers were Norman Hadley - poet, writer, They Eat Culture volunteer and the man behind the camera. Knowing that poetry is sometimes risky, Norman opted to impress us all with a reading from his book Perspectives that focused on risky activities...



Norman will be performing at Word Soup #6 on the 20th and launching his next poetry collection Stinging the Sepia in Garstang on the 7th November - for more details on that, please click here.

Ron Scowcroft, former Blackpool Sixth form literature teacher and now poet arrived and read to us, along side Blackburn based poet Paul Sockett (you'll remember him from the open mike slot at Word Soup #5 - he'll be returning to the stage as a booked performer at Word Soup #7 - 17th November).

As always - the real stars of the show were our open mikers - Blackpool natives who came to the library to share their words and work with us to celebrate the day. We were impressed by the variation in style, subject matter and form - and rather than review it, we thought we'd film it... (all film clips courtesy of Norman)









This National Poetry Day the theme was 'Heroes and Heroines' and while we didn't ask our poets to stick to the theme, the nervous poets and experienced performers who got up with us and made some noise in Blackpool Library were the real heroes of the day.

Hooray!

scRibble - first meeting update

A quick word from Catherine Cable - one of the founders of Preston's newest creative writing circle. Their first meeting was held at the New Continental on the 28th September...

I am sure my fellow "founder" Cat, would agree that we heaved a huge sigh of relief as 18 other budding writers arrived to take part (I had been wondering all day if we would be left sitting all alone with only the excellent wine and possibly a portion of bread and butter pudding with which to console ourselves!).

The evening got off to a good start with introductions from all the members (and hopefully I didn't witter on too much). Who would have thought that one creative writing group could boast not one, but two stars of Eastern European Television?

The short writing exercise based on "A new take on a traditional tale" produced some fine examples of creativity; from Rumplestiltskin in the guise of Sam Spade to a moving account of the re-homing of a young miner in a specially converted cottage with 6 others of similar small stature via a chilling account of a blood thirsty wolf. Pleasingly Jeremy Kyle also made an appearance featuring in an interview with Cinderella and her sisters "init".

If this is what we can produce during our first meeting, I can't wait to see what else these talented folk can come up with. I am looking forward to learning from the more experienced and sharing my angst with other beginners.

The "Challenge" for our October meeting is to produce a piece of writing starting with one of the following lines:

1 - Shadows quivered on the wall as the candle flickered, then fizzled to nothing.

2 - The dream last night had seemed so real, but it was just a dream, right?

3 - The storm whipped the trees outside and she huddled into her quilt.

4 - The prickles on his neck told him he was being watched.

Here's looking forward to sharing some chilling (or otherwise) tales for our late October meet.

The next meeting of scRibble will be at 7.30pm on Monday 26 October in the snug at the Conti. All welcome.

Word Soup on Tour

We always get excited to announce our latest Word Soup offering - but this Word Soup is special because it's our very first touring event. And where better to present an 'away' fixture of Preston's biggest and friendliest live lit night than at the sea-side!

Blackpool Library Service deliver an annual literature festival: Word Pool. This year the opening day of the festival falls on National Poetry Day and we've been asked to kick off the celebrations by presenting a poetry Word Soup at Blackpool Central Library.

The event will be held in the library's main space between 3.30 and 5pm on Thursday the 8th October.

It's FREE to get in and there'll be our usual open mike spots for all budding poets and spoken word performers.

We're excited to meet the local readers and writers in Blackpool, hear their words and tell them all about what we do. For our Preston poets, this is a great chance to come with us, take advantage of an open mike slot and showcase your work to a wider audience.

The line-up of poets we've got booked for the afternoon is a treat.

Our start performer is Ann Wilson - most of you will remember Ann from the splash she made presenting our very first Word Soup poetry special. We had such excellent feedback about her performance that we couldn't wait to get her back - and when better than a Word Soup special to celebrate National Poetry Day?

Annie Clarkson, another previous Word Soup performer, will be comming up from Manchester to share her words and work with us. Her collection Winter Hands will be available for sale - and if you can't wait until the 8th, you can always read her blog. She's a really great performer and we can't wait to see what Blackpool makes of her.

Norman Hadley - our newest PrestonWN volunteer, will be joining us again from Garstang after a fantastic first performance at Word Soup #4. Norman is a poet, author, writer and photographer and his website is well worth exploring - he's also a regular performer at Lancaster Spotlight and a contributor to the Lunecy Review.

Ron Scowcroft used to teach literature to Blackpool Sixth formers and is pleased as punch to return to the town to share his own poetry. A poet, blogger and regular performer at gigs across Lancashire, Ron will also be joining us at Spooky Word Soup #6 on the 20th October with a very special poem.

For more information about Word Soup and how to get involved, email jenn@theyeatculture.org
For more about Word Pool - Blackpool Library's very own literary festival, click here.

sCribble: New Creative Writing Group

News from the organisers of sCribble - Catherine Cable and Cat Dunlop. Those of you who've been attending Word Soup from the begining might remember Cath and Cat who took our very first open mike slots performing pieces they wrote and worked on during our eight-week creative writing course last winter.

Now they've set up a creative writing circle, and have dropped by to answer a few questions.

PrestonWN: What is scRibble?

Catherine: scRibble is a new creative writing group who will be meeting on a monthly basis in the New Continental, South Meadow Lane, Preston. We are a group of like minded writers who feel that a chance to get together, share ideas, give and receive feedback on our work and take part in writing exercises would help to motivate us to produce more writing.

PrestonWN: Why the name?

Catherine: The name was chosen because as writers we spend a lot of time scribbling words onto a page in the hope that some of them may make sense. Our home is to be the New Continental which is situated by the river Ribble (with wonderful views of the river from the beer garden!). It seemed like a suitable name to encompass both what we do and where we do it.

PrestonWN: Who is welcome?

Catherine: Anyone and everyone who wants to write. From experienced writers to the first timer. We intend the group to be organic and dynamic and to shape itself to the needs and wants of its members. Whilst there is a small annual subscription fee, members who join throughout the year can pay a proportion of this fee, so we are open to new members throughout.

PrestonWN: When's your first meeting?

Catherine: Our first meeting will take place on Monday 28th September from 7.30 to 9.30. We will then meet on the last Monday of each month - same time, same venue.

PrestonWN: How did you come up with the idea of starting a creative writing group?

Catherine: Cat Dunlop and I are graduates of the first Creative Writing course run by Jenn Ashworth. We took the course as a much more enjoyable activity that going to the gym and whilst we learned that we could occasionally come up with a good story or poem, it also allowed us to legitimately drink wine on a Monday night!

Following this course, we both found that in order to motivate us to actually put pen to paper, it helped enormously to have the support and feedback from the other students on the course.

PrestonWN: What is the benefit for new writers of joining a creative writing group?

Catherine: For new writers, such as myself, I found the confidence being part of a group gave me was invaluable in motivating me to write more. Being a member of a group allows a new writer to feel they are not alone in, what can be a lonely pastime.

It also allows them to pick the brains of more experienced writers, learn tips and techniques, have access to information about performing their work and entering competitions.

Being part of a group for both new and experienced writers helps to motivate and receiving feedback from other members of the group in a relaxed safe environment helps us to hone our craft. Oh and there is the added bonus of the drinking wine legitimately on a Monday night!

To be added to our mailing list to receive information about further meetings or just for a chat about what to expect, please contact Catherine.cable@talktalk.net.

So there you have it. sCribble - Preston's newest creative writing group. Open to all, with their first meeting at The New Continental, South Meadow Lane, Preston on the 28th September from 7.30pm. Off you go, and tell them we sent you!