MINUTES OF WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING 21 JULY 2022

Attending: Amanda, Hilary, Liz, Carla, Greg, Alan, Simona, Tricia

Apologies: Heather, Sarah DD, Peter, Emily

News:

Our August meeting, to be held on Thursday 18 August, as usual at the church, will be a summer social. A list of food to be brought and those bringing it has been circulated. Literary contributions also welcome, but of a light and summery nature.

Alan reported that the 81-word anthology, which has 1,000 stories by 1,000 authors, including one of his, has now achieved world record-breaking status.

Liz said the Book Group would be discussing The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng on 8 August.  

Carla said that her new poetry collection Workwear will be published by The High Window Press later this year.

Greg reminded us that he was taking part in a book-signing event with other Woking authors at the Lionsheart bookshop in Woking on Saturday afternoon.

Readings:

Amanda read her poem ‘Views from the Panorama hotel’, written after her recent holiday on a Greek island. A poem packed with observation and “off the cuff philosophy”. Greg suggested that the fourth line – “From our room: a car park, the bins, a dusty track and an adjacent hotel” – should be the first. Satisfyingly feelgood.

Greg read his poem ‘Dust My Broom’, about his holiday job as a roadsweeper in 1972. Our youngest member Simona asked quite reasonably who ‘Tricky Dicky’ was.

Alan read a gripping tale titled ‘A Hair’s Breadth’, with a nod to the homework subject ‘Fractured’, which involved a vaccine formula, a plan to blow up a mountain range, and a defective cable car system. There was both humour and Hitchcock and James Bond-style thrills. All in around 600 words!  

Tricia read a short but powerful eco-poem poem called ‘Fractured’, about our broken world, and its ability to heal itself.

Liz’s latest foray into life writing began with Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairy books and their botanically accurate drawings. These triggered memories of searching for wildflowers on her family’s farm, the ‘Biblical’ tasks of ploughing and sowing, as well as ditching and wells. She remembered mourning the shrinking of ponds in the summer, and wrote of the “emotional deprivation of water”.  

Hilary’s ‘Alternative Happiness’ was an exhilarating account of attending a pagan wedding with her husband. Purple and/or pink hair was the norm, and the bridegroom’s dreadlocks reached down below his waist. The bride and groom arrived in a horse and cart, and were tethered together with cord as they made their promises to each other. There was mead, and Beowulf performed by puppets. We all agreed that this would make a worthy separate feature on the website. 

Carla read two poems. ‘No Good No Bad’ had come out of a workshop run by Helen Ivory, editor of Ink Sweat and Tears online magazine. It was to be published by Pulsar magazine. The second, ‘Luna’, was packed with powerful religious imagery involving the moon, the Lamb of God, and Mary depicted as a lioness. During our discussion Carla said felt that her poems that involved more obscure language were easier to place in magazines, than others with more simple themes.

Next meeting: Summer social on Thursday 18 August (see above).

September meeting: Thursday 15 September

Jobs for September:

Minutes: Simona

Chair: Carla

Milk and biscuits: Liz

Wine: Tricia

Homework: Alarms(s)