Faringdon Writers have been meeting since 2014 and have a diverse range of members, including a journalist, short story writer, playwright, poet, children’s author, and a writer of Science Fiction. So, there is input from a range of specialities.
The meetings of the group are a time to talk about writing, and share: share problems and efforts, bits of writing found inspiring, or just worth sharing. Meetings start with how members are progressing, their recent writing joys and rejections; writing being a series of hopes, hard work, success, and defeat.
Following that, comes what people have written – the piece discussed may be a short story, an article, a poem, a bit of dialogue, or even the layout for a novel. There is comment but never rejection, that bugbear of sending something you spent hours on not even being deemed worthy of an editor’s reply. The comments are what criticism is supposed to be, friendly opinions, not dictates, meant to encourage, not destroy.
Time is also given to some aspects of writing, semi-colons, opening paragraphs, writing poetry, and even journalism, maybe with a workshop, or visiting speaker discussing crime writing, editing, marketing, writing for the theatre, or self-publishing.
To give purpose, once a year the Group produce an anthology. Each contributing member provides a poem, a short non-fiction piece, a flash fiction story, a short story, and some other piece of writing; involvement is not proscribed, but it helps to develop an alternative approach to writing.
Writing can be a lonely experience and so to bring together and showcase the wealth of local writing talent, the group successfully organised a bustling and busy Book Fair in the Corn Exchange on 12th November, with over 14 tables full of interesting and varied publications.
If you are interested, meetings take place in Faringdon Business Centre, Volunteer Way, SN7 7YR on the third Tuesday of each month. Whether you are published, self-published, a budding writer – or even simply curious – come along or visit the Facebook page Faringdon Writers. If you’d prefer, send an email to faringdonwriters@gmail.com and have your questions answered.
