Thursday 22 March 2012

ANOTHER GOOD MEETING

Worthy Words Workshops met for their monthly meeting on Wednesday 14th March, and I was delighted to see so many writers, in fact there wasn't a spare seat in the room!  Many thanks to the ladies from Chichester and Brighton who took the trouble to attend, and I do hope you found the session informative and useful.  After welcoming new visitors we went around the table sharing writing news since our last meeting. This was followed by a talk and lively discussion on the requirements for writing 'Pocket Novels' for People's Friend and My Weekly, obviously a good choice of subject, and several members went away planning to have a go! I then handed out the usual list of current competitions before manuscripts were read relating to the meeting on 8th February.  Most had attempted a seasonal or anniversary article, and these were read out and discussed.
Today, 22nd March I attended the SWWJ southern regional meeting.  This was extremely well attended.  Val Dunmore facilitated an excellent workshop on using imagination, and some excellent pieces of work were produced and read out.  After a lunch break author Lillian Harry talked about her own work and passed on some valuable tips, especially about research.  She also talked about e-books and the need to be aware of the significant rise and all author should learn to embrace it.  Authors should be thinking hard about self- publishing.  The publishing world is changing, the days of advances and publishers launches are gone!  Lillian actually remembered me from Swanwick.  I  first heard Lillian speak there in 1986, I think, when I was a just a fledgling writer!  Thanks you Lillian for remembering me - made my day!

Monday 5 March 2012

CHICHESTER YACHT CLUB


Many thanks to Diana Frances, social secretary of the Chichester Yacht Club for inviting me to speak at their monthly ladies luncheon on Wednesday 29th February.  I received a most warm welcome, and after a delicious lunch presented an illustrated talk based on my latest book, Shipwrecks of Sussex, which is available at most of the Sussex Waterstones or on Amazon. The audience, who were either sailors themselves or the wives of sailors, could fully appreciate just how dangerous it was to travel in these waters in days bygone days.  Most were amazed to learn that over 4,000 ships went down between Hasting in the east and Chichester in the west. The question and answer session was extremely lively and many, many thanks to the ladies who bought copies of the book - either for themselves or as gifts for their sailor men folk.