WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING on Zoom on 18 February 2021

Attending: Amanda, Greg, Liz, Alan, Heather, Tricia, Melanie, Alix, Carla, Hilary, Sarah DD, Dan, Simon.

News

Carla said she had successfully come through her Phd Viva on Margaret Atwood, and was looking forward to a degree ceremony in December

Greg said Dempsey & Windle was due to publish his debut full poetry collection Marples Must Go! In September. He was very happy to have reached such a milestone before turning 70 …

Alan said that one of his flash fiction stories would be published in the autumn in an anthology, as part of Christopher Fielden’s 81-word story writing challenge

Liz reported that the book group had enjoyed Diary of a Nobody, to the extent of awarding it 7/8 out of 10. The next book group meeting, to discuss Where the Crawdads Sing, will be on 22 March, at 6.45pm.

Readings

Carla read a short and very entertaining piece called Italian Club, which centred on a bingo event, and was half in English and half in Italian.  

Greg read his poem ‘The Jab’, about receiving the Pfizer vaccine in Woking – a nod to the homework subject of Hope.

Melanie read a piece of life writing which she had entered for the Spread the Word competition.This record of an unusual family’s lifestyle included a graphic account of giving birth witnessed from a young child’s point of view.

Tricia’s poem ‘Night Frolics’ contained nature observations such as ducks and herons on an iced-up canal. It was suggested that the lines could easily be converted into three haiku.

Alix returned to her novel, reflecting the theme of Hope. A pregnancy is announced in a bar, and the narrator feels very positive about it: ‘Yes, I thought, I can be this man.’

Heather also read a poem about vaccination, ‘Hope in the Time of Covid’. It was agreed to post Heather’s and Greg’s poems on our website.

Amanda read a piece about the funeral of an 84-year-old aunt who had died from Covid. ‘The Pink Funeral’ reflected the fact that her aunt had departed in a pink coffin, marking the fact that she and her husband were seen in the family and beyond as the ‘Taylor and Burton of their time’. The funeral was in the Midlands, and it was the first time that Amanda had left Surrey since the initial lockdown in March last year … “the drive liberating rather than tedious … the organist blowing on her hands between turning the pages”.   

Alan’s piece of flash fiction, ‘Rebooted’, was about a group of white supremacist thugs planning an armed attack. It involved a purple neck scarf, and a neat twist.

Dan read the first chapter of a current work in progress, a police crime thriller, set in a dystopian, police-state version of Britain. Cabinet ministers are besieged by people outside trying to get in. It had been partly inspired by the storming of the Capitol in the US, he said.   

Hilary read a piece called ‘Disorder in the Home Counties’, involving tree-felling, a neighbour’s bare backside, and a fast-growing camellia – “a blessed curtain of green” – to screen out such sights.

Liz, inspired by Diary of a Nobody, had been digging out some of her old diaries, including one about the sights and sounds of a trip to South Africa in 2005, involving a poem that she didn’t rate, and thoughts on insects and weaver birds. She even shared a diary entry about a long-ago Writers Circle meeting. But we won’t go there …    

Sarah DD gave us an impromptu, meditative poem that was captivating.

Next meeting on Zoom: Thursday 18 March.

Homework theme: Madness

WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM THURSDAY 17 DECEMBER 2020

Attending:  Amanda, Greg, Tricia, Heather, Sarah DD, Alan, Hilary, Simon, Liz, Carla, Alix.

Apologies: Dan

NEWS

Liz said that the book group would be meeting on Monday 11 January to discuss Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche 

Heather reported that she had been one of 10 shortlisted in the Hysteria 2020 writing competition, with her poem, ’A Call from a Friend’, also published in the anthology. She had also had two poems included in the Creative Mind anthology published by Preeta Press. The subjects of the competition were Nature and Walking in Nature, and she had one poem chosen in each category: ‘The Inappropriate Cormorant’ (Editor’s Choice) and ‘Truths of a Wilder Walk’.

Carla mentioned that David Cooke’s online quarterly The High Window had put out a call for submissions from women poets. Submissions will be open again from the beginning of March.

READINGS

Alix read her spoof parenting blog called ‘Just the Tonic’ about the chaos that ensues in trying to complete a school task, involving a lost earring, and ‘the drawer of doom’.

Tricia mentioned the ‘little things’ in her Covid saga The Deadly Crown, that were missed most during the pandemic restrictions –  handshakes, hugs, hard cash, tag games, the camaraderie of being in a group, chance and spontaneity. And yet there was still an underworld that operated outside the rules.

Heather’s poem ‘Trip to the dustbin’ was very much about the little things, too. “The cold, damp air displaces dessicated cheer”, but there is a darker, wilder world beyond the bins, which you can hear as owls hoot in the wood. Simon compared the language of the poem to that of Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’.

Alan’s story Lock Step elliptically referred to small things, as Darren battled with an inner voice and tried to forget something involving Sandra. This enigmatic tale revolved around an accident, and conscience.  

Simon’s parody of Slade’s evergreen Christmas hit was a savage satire of the state of things, as we all contemplated circumscribed family festivities. It included such mordant lines as:  “Are you waiting for the vaccine to arrive? / Are you sure you’re going to meet the folks outside? / Does your granny cough and tell you / that she’s got a dodgy chest? / Is she on a ventilator with the rest?”

Sarah DD gave us the first draft of a poemthat resulted in some enthusiastic praise.

Carla gave us a poignant family poem titled ‘Moving Out’, about children leaving home, that was first drafted at a recent poetry workshop. Its lines included: “I might forget what to say / and you will be already gone.”  

Greg read a poem called ‘The Family Silver’, about a cruet set given to his grandfather by his football club to mark his marriage, soon after his return from the first world war.

Liz hadtransformed her usual Christmas newsletter to family and friends into a performance poem in the form of an unfinished personal alphabet.  She had had fun compiling it, even though the letter I inevitably was for isolation, L was for lockdown, and N the new normal.  

Hilary read a lyrical piece about a gift of a multi-coloured quilt which she had received in the post from a friend, comparing it to a coat of many colours, the perfect dreamcoat, and a waterfall of colours.

Amanda read her rollicking Christmas poem ‘The Cat Who Stole Christmas’ to round off our proceedings with a smile, the household pet prowling around “with a dirty dead mouse”.

Next meeting: Thursday 21 January.

Theme:  ‘The New’ or ‘Twenty-one’

WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM THURSDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2020

Attending: Amanda, Danny, Liz, Alan, Greg, Tricia, Heather, Carla, Alix, Hilary 

NEWS

Liz reported that the book group had met recently to discuss The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell. The next novel on the agenda would be Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

She had also paid a visit to Brookwood cemetery, which the WWC is planning to visit as a group next year. Liz suggested using a guide would be a valuable move.

Alan reported that, as a result of our chairman Peter Morley once again circulating the newsletter of Gosnells Writers Circle in Perth, Australia, he had had a piece of flash fiction published in their Showcase section.

READINGS

The optional theme was Remembrance. Greg read a poem titled ‘Le Treport’, about his mother’s successful family quest in the 1960s to locate her grandfather’s first world grave in a coastal town in northern France. Greg hopes this will be published in the Wilfred Owen Association Journal next year.   

Tricia gave us another piece in the jigsaw of her pandemic saga, The Deadly Crown. The action moves to an Antarctic research station previously used for surveying penguins, on the one continent where there is no virus, “the only clean zone”. Alan said it all reminded him of the film Ice Station Zebra.

Alan read his story All Present and Correct, on the theme of Remembrance. Someone picks up the phone and answers ‘Festering …’ (Another one for that long-awaited map of Alan’s alternative place names). The action revolves around the fear that an old comrade with Alzheimer’s will spill the beans about something that happened in the notorious Helmand province of Afghanistan. A commemorative parade goes off uneventfully, but then two old soldiers receive white feathers in the post.

Heather contributed two short poems on the theme – ‘Remembering or not’, and ‘Do You Remember?’ The first one was about the things you can’t remember, such as a pin number while queuing for the cash dispenser, and the odd things you never forget. The latter, poignant poem was about visiting a dying, close friend in hospital: “That heedless world we thought would last for ever …”

Carla’s short poem ‘Lest We Forget’ had the colour red – the colour of poppies and blood – running through it, with lines including “soldiers in vermilion stripes”. There was a link with Sylvia Plath, and she also mentioned one with an Italian first world war poet.

Liz gave us five haiku full of images taken from patterns in a kimono that she hadn’t previously looked at for 10 years. Members felt that although the material – pardon the pun – was very personal, it was also very relevant to lockdown.

Alix gave us a poem loosely based on the theme of Remembrance called ‘Old Hurts’. Memorable lines included this one, about the bones “beneath your bones-picked day”.

Hilary’s A Month of Small Things was about lockdown and remembrance. With lockdown, the organism “had achieved the anarchist’s dream”, with “a master plan no more complex than to replicate”. She discussed the phrase “narrowing down”, with its hints of wartime, but also in reference to the naturalist Gilbert White of Selborne, who used it in a more positive sense. Hilary listed other positive moments during narrowing down, such as the “mist in the morning when I open the curtains” and “that first taste of apple crumble.” Now take some time to think of your own positive moments during lockdown.

Danny gave us two very short, masterly crafted short stories. ‘Local Hero’ is about a man lauded for apparently saving a little girl from a burning tower block after a gas explosion. He knows he does not deserve the plaudits. ‘The Oak Tree’ contained this line: “They met after the end of the world.” It is about gardening for a future that, with grandchildren dead, no one will see.

Next meeting on Zoom: Thursday 17 December.

Homework theme: Small things.

WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE ON ZOOM OCTOBER 16 2020

On screen: Greg, Carla, Alan, Alix, Liz, Tricia, Hilary

Apologies: Amanda, Sarah DD, Heather, Peter.

News

Liz reported that the book group had read Small Island by Andrea Levy,which had proved their most popular book so far. The group’s next meeting – on Zoom – will be on Monday 16 November, when they will be looking at The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell, recently dramatised on Channel 4.

Alan made to plea to anyone who had recently read his novel, Theta Double Dot, that was published last year, to consider placing a review of it on the book’s Amazon page.

Readings

Carla shared her poem ‘Kimono Patterns’, with its references to “the tightness of the obi”, [the belt or sash], and how a kimono should reveal the nape of the neck. There were sensual details about courtesans, passion, bites on the neck. Another work by Carla revealing her fascination with and knowledge of Japanese culture.   

Alan’s story Insufficient Progress involved dying smartphones, a breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and his usual classic place names such as Waterbourne Hubris, Long Harrowing and the very dodgy-sounding Crudgeonmass Eve – a time when you should never look upon the Roman aqueduct if there is a full moon. You start worrying when the advice is, it’s safer going through the cemetery. Alan also provided some great rural accents in his rendition of this cautionary tale, with Hilary congratulating him on finding his ‘inner yokel’.

Alix read another excerpt from her novel The Dive, a section that she titled Rachel. It involved the narrator ridding herself of Damian, and his evil-smelling cologne, and relating this to her friend Addie in a wine bar, who reacts by calling for champagne. Hilary suggested the insertion of some more dialogue to help the flow.

Liz introduced her contribution, Ruminations in Praise of Journalling Between the Covers, with a discussion of the word ‘rumination’. Her piece describes her process of writing late at night, trying to work out “the jigsaw puzzle of my mind”, and included occasional lines of rhyming poetry, and a reflective passage about walking along the canal.

In the latest instalment of Tricia’s pandemic saga, The Deadly Crown, a couple are watching an old movie where everyone is touching each other. Eventually they can bear to watch it no longer, and turn it off. They are considering moving out to the country, because neither has to work in the office any more. A father has become a conspiracy theorist. Everyone needs to have a chip installed in their arm to track the virus. The final line has the woman touching her bump, and wondering “what kind of world this baby would be born into”.

Hilary gave us a ‘cheerier’ section of her new novel. The main character is Linnet, working on the first day of her new Saturday job in a hairdressing salon. The job is not going very well, and she nips next door to a chaotic café where she used to work, that is now run off its feet trying to cope with the breakfast rush. We encounter Giorgio, “a small, sweaty, Italian whirlwind”, who with his apron spattered with tomato ketchup, could be mistaken for a Mafia hitman.   

Greg read “for Liz’s benefit, because she’d mentioned The Singapore Grip”, a poem called ‘Depend on the Enemy for Rations’, written from the perspective of a Japanese solder who was part of the invasion force that overcame Malaya and Singapore. Liz used to teach at Raffles Institution , across the road from the famous Raffles hotel in Singapore. Greg’s father was taken prisoner when Singapore fell in 1942, and with many thousands of other Allied soldiers, remained a POW of the Japanese until the end of the war in 1945.  

Next WWC meeting on Zoom: Thursday November 19

Homework theme: Remembrance

WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM ON AUGUST 20 2020

Attending: Danny, Amanda (briefly!), Greg, Alix, Alan, Hilary, Sarah DD, Simon, Liz, Carla.

Apologies:  Peter, Heather, Mel.  

News:

Hilary gave us the latest news on the question of returning to the church hall, or not. It would be possible from September, with a number of restrictions in place, although the government website did not advise a return to such gatherings before October. This was of course before the new restrictions were announced. Most members felt they were not ready to return to live meetings yet. But Alix had the good idea of an open-air meeting in Woking Park, and that has since taken place, attended by six of us – Alix, Tricia, Hilary, Amanda, Danny and Greg.  

Liz said the book group would be looking at the Booker-prize winning novel The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes in September, and at Small Island in October.

Readings:

Greg read a poem called ‘Cycle Street’ about living in an end-of-terrace house in the late 70s in York.

Carla read a poem called ‘Masking Faces’ which was first put together at a Poetry Business workshop and has now been published in the Dempsey & Windle What Next competition anthology. Its last line ends with these arresting words … “the phantasamagorical reality of the corona”.  

Alix read a short story called ‘Masquerade’, about tension in a couple’s relationship as they misread each other’s desires.   

Liz gave us some haiku, a political one, and another about the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima Day, usually commemorated with tea-light candles floating in the river Wey. But not this year. She also intrigued us with another glimpse of her life as a student in Newcastle in the 60s. She has already tantalised us – well, Greg, anyway – with tales of attending poetry readings at the legendary Morden Tower, frequented by the US Beat poets when they were visiting England. But being the 60s, she can’t remember much about it. Now she read a poem called ‘Wind’ that was published in a magazine at the time, Universities (7), that was edited by the poet Peter Redgrove. A poetry dark house, is Liz.

Alan’s short story ‘Special Delivery’ involved an Amazon van and a Chinese dissident who is abducted on his doorstep.  

Sarah DD read out a love letter to Jane Austen that she had tried out on us before, but had now played around with a bit. It is a ‘what if’ kind of letter that contains a marriage proposal, from Harris Bigg-Wither, which Jane first accepted and then turned down. This is all true https://www.digitalausten.org/node/26 Sarah phrased the letter in such a way that we can see why Jane eventually saw sense.

Hilary read the beginning of another chapter of her new novel. Her main character lives in a ropey council tower block, and goes to the park on a Sunday, which evokes unhappy memories of childhood and trips there with her dad, who made use of the time to buy four-packs from the Spar shop.    

Next meeting on Zoom: Thursday 17 September (Amanda will provide log-in details)

Homework theme: AS or SA.

WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM 16 JULY 2020

 

Attending Amanda, Greg, Liz, Mel, Tricia, Carla, Hilary, Simon, Alex, Danny, Alan, Heather.

 

News

Alan has a new blog on his website, with guest posts. You can find it here

Carla has launched her poetry collection with a splendid night that included guest appearances from Heather, Liz and Greg, as well as many other poets from near and far . She was also guest poet at Write Out Loud Woking on Zoom last month.

Liz mentioned the upcoming book group meeting on Zoom. If you wish to attend a book group meeting contact Liz for log-in details.

Hilary reported that she had not yet heard from the church about returning to holding real meetings there. Since then there have been developments, and Hilary may well be letting us know about them at our August meeting.

 

Readings

Tricia continued with her ongoing story about the pandemic, ‘The Deadly Crown’. The experts are uncertain while two main characters Don and Bo are plotting tactics. At one point Mr J picks up a picture of his latest child.

Carla read her prose-poem titled ‘Canada Day’, written during a recent workshop with the poet Hannah Lowe. A day – uncertainty about which day – when something surreal happens. Heather commented afterwards that it was very much ‘still a poem’.

Greg read his poem ‘Heliocentric’, inspired by sunflowers sown and tended by his wife Gillian during lockdown.

Alex read the first chapter and some of the second of a novel, ‘The Dive’, about a childhood accident. She plunged straight in, as it were, with plenty of aquatic images.

Liz continued with her current ‘addiction’ to haiku, with two sets, in which she rhymed the first and last lines as well. ‘Time’ was about a hotel getaway, and how we spend time. Her second set was a five-course affair, which she had read at Carla’s book launch.

Hilary has started a new novel, about hair, saying she had become obsessed about hair in the last few months. The story of Jimmy A and his salon was being developed from a short story. She said that her previous novel had been sent to an agent, although such agents have been overwhelmed with submissions during lockdown. Hilary said she would not be sending out to any more until the Covid dust settles.

Melanie gave us the first draft of a short story called X. Images of tedious routine combined to conjure up a virus-influenced, Owellian atmosphere.

Heather’s ’24 July 2020’ was not a Venetian masquerade, but “Waitrose, Woking, in July”. She described shoppers wearing masks, a “quick-step in the aisles … swathed in plastic, I try and smile.”

Simon’s erudite poem was composed of lines lifted from names such as Wyatt, Larkin, Eliot, Arnold, Yeats, Auden, Spenser and Neruda. We got a few but struggled to name all the poets before he put us out of our misery!

Danny continued with his short story The Visible Man, developing the interrogation scene between the detective and the protagonist. The dialogue is immaculate as the detective switches roles, from empathy to accuser.

Amanda’s poem ‘Wasps’ compared such insects to juvenile delinquents, that ‘spoil the spread, bomb the wine, nosedive the trifle’, finally asking ‘why can’t they behave more like bees?’, those latter insects beloved by poets.

Alan’s clever piece of fiction imagined staging the local show on Zoom this year, and was replete with lines about ‘marrows’ and ‘fondling the biggest one’. His one-sided conversation included an intruder wearing a face mask.

 

Next meeting: Thursday 20 August. Await log-in details from Amanda.

Optional theme: Masks, or Muted. What else?!

WOKING WRITERS CIRCLE MEETING ON ZOOM June 2020

Attending: Amanda, Greg, Alan, Peter, Alex (new), Carla, Tricia, Heather, Danny, Liz, Simon, Mel.

 

News

Liz said the next book group meeting would be on Tuesday 23 June. Members were reading different books, including The Plague by Albert Camus.

Carla announced the publication of her debut pamphlet collection, Negotiating Caponata, and its Zoom launch on Thursday 16 July. This means that the next Woking Writers Circle meeting will be on Thursday 23 July, a week later than normal.

Peter reported that an article that he had altered since reading it at the last WWC meeting is to be published in a forthcoming issue of Vintage Motorcycle Journal. He has been commissioned to write another, too.

 

Readings

Peter read us another section of his wartime story about ice-skater Tommy. It is August 1939, and evacuees have already started arriving, disturbing the bucolic summer mood in the countryside. It was a passage packed with authentic details, and a message of ‘Half a mo, HItler – let us have our holidays first.’

Heather’s thoughtful and crafted poem, ‘The Swarm’, was about the mixed feelings of someone experiencing an invasion of bees in a garden. They move on without harming harm her. It ends: “I gather pegs, shake out the crumpled sheets, / absurdly hurt that they rejected me.”

Liz read out her article explaining the subtle intricacies of the haiku, which has subsequently been published on the letters page of the Woking News & Mail, along with another of her photos and haiku.

Carla read her blog about summer holidays during the pandemic. It includes references to meetings on Zoom, and peeping in people’s houses, and checking out background pictures and bookshelves. She had had to cancel a trip to Canada, and missed theatre outings, and felt online gatherings ‘don’t give you a flavour of the real thing’.

Simon introduced his lockdown pastiche of Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday – ‘We’re not going on a summer holiday ..’ –  with the words: ‘Why did you go into education?’ ‘July and August’. He apologised to Cliff and the Shadows, but we all enjoyed it.

Alan’s excellent lockdown story ‘Contagion’ centred on a couple in isolation, with ensuing tension, and references to untrimmed hair. A businessman’s deserted premises are being taken over by nature. It had an abrupt ending.

Tricia read another extract from her dystopian exploration of the pandemic, ‘The Deadly Crown’. Amid a chaotic, destabilising atmosphere, this passage looked at the easing of lockdown, and back at positive aspects of confinement, and prompted a brief and lively discussion.

Greg read a poem called ‘Solent’, about a family holiday 30 years ago. The recent poem, with a Father’s Day theme, had been triggered by an old photograph of himself and his daughter on a ferry returning from the Isle of Wight.

Mel introduced her poem, ‘The Short Fuse’, by saying that “one of the things that really upsets me is prejudice”. Her powerful poem was based on a dream, she said.

Danny read his entertaining story, ‘The Visible Man’, which involved a police interrogation, and included colourful details of a street market.

 

Next meeting, on Zoom:  Thursday 23 July.