WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON Zoom 21 January 2021

Attending: Hilary, Heather, Carla, Alan, Greg, Liz, Dan, Tricia, Alix

Apologies:  Mel, Sarah DD, Peter

News

Hilary drew our attention to a one-man show billed for the Guildford Fringe this summer. “Escaping from a high control religious group is not simple. It is a waking up process that can take years.” Waking Up Gay is on 10 July at 5pm at the Star Inn. More details here

Liz said the book group had recently read Half of a Yellow Sun. Their book in February would be Diary of a Nobody.

Readings

Greg read a poem called ‘The Flowerpot Men’ about two characters from children’s television more than 60 years ago.

Heather read a poem which began with “oily mud in Tesco’s car park” but ended far more optimistically, looking forward to seeing a green woodpecker: “This, this feels like a beginning.”  

Carla read from a fascinating old blog of hers, comparing life in Italy, and in the north-west of England, when she first arrived in this country: “Things that seemed unusual ten years ago are now very normal.” Filling in a form about ethnic origin, she comments: “I don’t know what is in my blood,” while in London “I couldn’t find any English people”. She concludes: “I love England, I always did … a detached home from the rest of Europe.”  

Alan read with his usual relish a tale called ‘All Hovering’s Eve’, which featured a husband with health problems, a mysterious car that hovered about outside, and an enigmatic ending. Were both the couple in this story broken in different ways?  

Hilary contributed an impressionistic piece of her thoughts during these Covid times; how Wuhan sounded so far away at the beginning of it all, that old Chinese ‘interesting times’ curse returning repeatedly in a haunting way; the lack of clouds and vapour trails; tiers; this “disaster movie we were all living through”.   

Liz read from her remarkable and moving entry for the Spread the Word life writing prize about her existence at a boarding school as “a timid country girl with spots” who suffered serial bullying.

Dan read a New Year story aptly titled The Resolutions, about a single guy living in some squalor in his flat resolving to turn his life around, and win his girlfriend back. Getting rid of bad habits isn’t anything like as easy as he had imagined, but he makes a start. Unpromising subject matter, maybe, but written as always with admirable economy, and page-turning appeal.    

The next meeting on Zoom will be on Thursday 18 February

The optional writing theme is Hope