2024 Summer Competition

Terry (chair, left), John, proud recipient of trophy from Lee (adjudicator for the competition)

The summer competition was a self-judged one (the members rated each others’ stories and provided feedback on all but their own) on the theme of “Satire”.

Winners were:

First place: “The Winds of Change”, by John.

Second place: “The After Dinner Entertainment”, by Beth.

Third place: “An Act of Kindness”, by Lorraine.

Beth (left, second place), John (winner), Lorraine (third place)

2024 AGM and Awards

Left to right - Phillip Kavvadias (Writer of the year), Beth Rogers (newcomer of the year), Terry Adlam (chairman), Julian Cappelli (Endeavour Award), Paul Stimpson (Taylor award for services to the group)

·        Newcomer of the year – Beth Rogers

·        The Endeavour award – Julian Cappelli

·        Writer of the year – Phillip Kavvadias

·        The Taylor award (for services to the group) – Paul Stimpson

2024 Poetry Competition Results

(left-to-right) - John Brown (highly commended), Neil Dickinson (3rd), Julian Cappelli (winner), Claire Dyer, Michael Ranes (2nd), and Terry Adlam.

Claire Dyer said it was an honour to be asked to judge our 2024 competition. She liked the open theme and the variety of subjects and styles that were created as a result.

She said that the poems that stood out for her were those that followed Emily Dickinson’s advice, “tell all the truth but tell it slant”.

She then talked about the four winning poems, what she liked about them and what, in some cases, would make them even better.

·        Highly commended – John Brown for The Day My Knees Gave Way – an honest account of grief and the tragic loss of a life partner

·        Third place – Neil Dickinson for LIGO – an original view of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory

·        Second place – Michael Ranes for Tongues of Sweet – an account of the darker side of “gentlemen’s clubs” in the far east

·        First place – Julian Cappelli for Golden Years – a poignant look at fatherhood

Philip Kavvadias - Dealing with an Agent

A hopefully very-satisfied author giving a reading from his book.

Philip took everyone through a five year timeline of writing and submitting children’s books to agents and eventually securing a three-book publishing deal with Chicken House Books.

He said that pretty much everything he learnt was from Google, The Writers and Artists Yearbook and writers groups, including Slough Writers.

He explained how the process starts with a query letter to agents – not a cover letter – which is a very short pitch showing how the book will appeal. Writers need to have studied the most recent children’s market and not refer to Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

He said that attending a conference by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators was very helpful. He found out about competitions to win 20 minutes with an agent and heard that publishers were looking for books with a child and an animal, so Philip quickly wrote the first chapter of his book, which led to him meeting famous agent Becky Bagnell, who turned out to be a massive help.

He was invited to send her his complete book. He took a few months to write 40,000 words. (He writes for at least an hour – usually in the evenings – every day.) He didn’t write a plot. He just made sure every chapter ended with a cliff hanger.

The next 18 months saw umpteen edits and copyedits, as well as illustrations, marketing plans and launch planning. Eventually the book was launched at Waterstones in Windsor on 27 April 2024.

A good turnout to congratulate success. Which obviously Slough Writers attribute to our amazing advice.

Philip has already written his second book – Mission Manta Ray – and the third is almost complete. Having done all the hard work of writing the books and getting them published, Philip is now spending all his free time promoting Mission Microraptor. He loves the school talks and is looking at other opportunities such as libraries, fairs and festivals.

Everyone at the group is hugely proud – and envious.

Claire Dyer Visits the Group

Claire Dyer is judging this year’s poetry competition, and came to visit the group to give advice. You can find out more about her here: https://clairedyer.com/

Philip Kavvadias Book Launch

Philip signing and reading an extract of Mission Microraptor

On Saturday Slough Writers member Philip Kavvadias was at Waterstones for the launch of his children’s book ‘Mission Microraptor’.

More information available on his website here.

Ted Jones Short Story Competition Results

Results evening at Slough Writers

This evening marked the presentation of the results of this year’s Ted Jones Short Story competition, presented by our guest judge David Bullock.

David provided all those who entered with extensive feedback on their efforts and congratulated everyone both for taking part and for the quality of their entries.

Detailed feedback on individual stories will be circulated independently of these minutes. David made a couple of overall points. First, he encouraged writers to ‘go to town’ on their descriptive prose to give readers a sense of time and place in the narratives. Second, he suggested that time devoted to editing and correcting manuscripts was always well spent, since mistakes in spelling and grammar invariably tended to ‘throw’ readers and led to a loss of confidence in stories.

The Ted Jones trophy

The winner of the competition was Lin, with her story, The Final. David was so impressed and moved by this story that he read it three times! Unfortunately, Lin was indisposed on the night and so could neither accept the praise lavished on her by the judge or read out her winning piece. This pleasure awaits the group at the start of next term.

Second was Mike R, with his story, Such is Death. This was a tale of revenge served cold. A father visits the man whom he holds responsible for his son’s death at the battle of the Somme.

Third was Beth with her story, The Verdict. This focused on the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of the poet Thomas Wyatt.

Highly commended was Terry’s story, Does My Bum Look Big In This? This was a darkly comic tale of goings on at an AmDram panto and revelations about the murky past of a member of the cast.

Terry once again thanked David for the extent and quality of his feedback before bringing the meeting to a close at 9.30 pm.

From left to right: Lin Hurdwell (inset, who was unable to attend, first place), Terry Adlam (commended), Beth Rogers (third place),
Michael Ranes (second place), and judge David Bullock.

Epilogue - Lin (the next week) finally gets to lift the Ted Jones Short Story Competition trophy.

Johnny Ball speaks to Slough Writers

Johnny with a volume of the encyclopedia that inspired him as a child.

Johnny Ball has been entertaining for 60 years. 12 in Stand Up, 51 in TV, 38 in education. They overlap! He is not 101!

In a wide-ranging talk Johnny described his varied life and career. Aero engineer, Butlin’s redcoat, civil servant, drummer, radio comic, TV presenter and personality, author, mathematician, educator, writer and producer of educational roadshows, musicals and latterly a poet, Johnny’s c.v. is truly remarkable.

The message Johnny gave to the group concerned the power of writing. Early on in his career he realised that having control over one’s material made everything else more fulfilling and rewarding. He mentioned encouraging the daughter of a friend, an aspiring actor, to write. He explained that being a writer gave any performer a great insight into the intent behind the material he or she was interpreting.

While Johnny is a great advocate of the benefits of writing, his career has been far from plain sailing. Illness meant that his education was disrupted, causing him to leave school with only two ‘O’ levels. Despite these setbacks his powerful, natural drive made him an autodidact, spending hours in libraries absorbing facts from encyclopaedias, facts that he retains to this day. Johnny educated himself before helping countless thousands to improve and widen their own learning. He has never been one to accept the word, ‘can’t’.

You would think, given Johnny’s fascinating, varied and successful life, he would make a great subject for an autobiography. Well, he has written one (actually two).

The irony? He has not yet been able to find a publisher for them!

The Slough Writers audience with Johnny Ball

Article Competition Results 2023

Our article competition was judged by Abhi Arumbakkam, a mother-of-two who is an independent artist with a Fellowship from Farnham Maltings, UK. She also works as Project Manager at Slough-based Resource Productions. Born and raised in India, Abhi has lived in the UK since 2003. She writes plays, makes documentary films and regularly sends off proposals for both in the hope of being commissioned. Her fingers are perennially crossed.  

Before revealing her comments and the winners, Abhi asked the group how they found the competition. All those who answered said they initially found it difficult – not knowing how to handle interviewing a dead person and how much fiction was allowed within the facts. They all enjoyed the challenge.

Abhi reminded the group of her brief – to imagine talking to an ancestor and painting a story of their life – include what you know and imagine how’d they react – capture their voice.

She said that all but one of the eight entries were about grandparents, probably because even if we’ve never met them, we will have heard our families talking about them.

The winners, left to right: Neil Dickinson (3rd), Abhi (judge), Lorraine Forrest-Turner (1st), Lee Taylor (2nd)

She said that, overall, she was very moved with the entries and often found herself in floods of tears. Her own grandmother had died young and that coming from India, with family so far away, she felt touched by the humanity in our articles. She felt that these were real people, even if the authors hadn’t met them.

She then ran through each story, praising the good writing and then saying why she felt some didn’t quite work for her. Mostly, this was due to the author reflecting and reminiscing rather presenting the person in their own voice. She made several references to wanting his/her story and hearing his/her voice. The winners captured that voice and spirit of the person being interviewed. She read out sections where the author had done this beautifully.

The winners were: 

First place – Lorraine Forrest-Turner with ‘Grunnie Grant’
Second place – Lee Taylor with ‘William Atkins’
Third place – Neil Dickinson with ‘Big Ben’
Commended – Linda Hurdwell with ‘Meeting Jane Lea’

Workshop - Change The Gender

The meeting was led by Lorraine Forrest-Turner and focused on the issue of gender in writing. Did it make a difference whether a writer wrote from the male or female or non-binary standpoint or any other position?

Members had been asked to think about a piece of writing (book, story, film, play etc.) with a strong central character and to consider the effect of changing the gender of that character.

Various examples were discussed, including Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Sanditon and Jane Austen novels. As the debate unravelled, it covered issues including whether it was possible to define what a gendered perspective actually was, indeed whether such a thing existed.

It was a lively evening though, perhaps predictably, the collective brains of those present did not manage to reach a definitive set of conclusions on the subject. As they say (or perhaps used to say) in the tabloids, this one will run and run.

A video of the workshop is available below.

Summer Short Story Competition Results

Marion Watson, judging the competition via Zoom.

The Summer Competition was to write a story on the theme “A Letter Home”.

Our judge, Marion Watson, made some general comments about all of the entries.

The results:

1st Place: A Letter To My Heart Space by Mary Fraser

2nd Place: Ashes Dad by Sally Clarke

3rd Place: Love and Fear on the Irrawaddy by Elaine.

Highly Commended: Being a Mother by Lorraine Forrest-Turner

Commended: A Letter Home by Lin Hurdwell, We’re Safe by Philip Kavvadias

Terry presenting the trophy to Mary for her winning entry.

Always a good crowd for competition results nights. (Although you can tell we all remember school days, by the empty front row!)

All the winners present on the night - (left to right) Lin, Mary, Terry, Sally, Lorraine

Guest Speaker Fatemeh Moussavi-Pourgharbi

Was a presentation by our guest speaker Fatemeh Moussavi-Pourgharbi on the subject of Creative Writing in Healthcare.

Fatemeh is a doctor now working on clinical trials. She has recently worked with the Open niversity on a project looking at the effect of creative writing on well-being. In particular, she has helped run a study looking at how creative writing (and, in particular writing about one’s own emotional problems through activities like ‘mindful journaling’) can have a positive effect on the immune system. In a small-scale experiment, such activity was even shown to have an effect on blood pressure.

Fatemeh gave some examples from her own experience of how creative writing helped her while working in high-pressure medical environments – e.g. during the recent covid crisis – where ‘losing’ a patients was an all too frequent occurrence.

Members were encouraged to think about and share their own experience of difficult times and what helped them through.

2023 AGM and Awards

Magdalena Farynska, newcomer of the year

Richard Hill, prolific writer of articles, won the Endeavour Award

Neil Dickinson, author of the Scotch the Scare-Go children’s books, awarded Writer of the Year

Slough Writers held our annual awards ceremony with Terry Adlam (chair) giving his customary review of the year, and hopes for the year to come. All told the venue has been a success, especially with the addition of our library-themed bar screen to avoid distractions during our meetings (many thanks to Mike P). The group continues to flourish, with some exceptional talent, on display with this year’s award winners.

Chair of the group Terry Adlam (L) receiving the Services to the Group award from Lee Taylor (vice-chair, R).

All the night’s award-winners. Left-to-right: Lee Taylor (winner of the poetry competition - see other blog post), Richard Hill (Endeavour Award), Magdalena Farynska (Newcomer of the Year), Neil Dickinson (Writer of the Year), and Terry Adlam (Services to the Group).
(Notice the library-themed background)

2023 Poetry Competition Results

Roger Stennett - schoolmate of King Charles and author of a book of poetry: “Forty Poems For Dylan Thomas” - judged our “Ode to the King” competition and appeared at our meeting via video link.

He was impressed with the standard and variety of the 14 entries to the competition, awarding the title to Lee Taylor with “Uneasy Lies the Head”.

The full results were as follows:

1st Place - Uneasy Lies the Head, by Lee Taylor
2nd Place - KC111, by Vinay Vyas
3rd Place - Kingdom, by Michael Ranes

Three more were commended, which were:

The Waiting Game, by Lorraine Forrest-Turner
God Save the Song, by Robert Kibble
Ode to the King (of my Heart), by Nazalee Raja

Pictured is Lee Taylor receiving the award from Terry Adlam, as Roger looks on through the magic of Zoom.

500-Word Competition

Mary, winning THE MASSIVE CUP (tm)

The excitement is always intense - and not just because of the MASSIVE CUP (tm) awarded to the winner of the one-night flash fiction competition. This time the group took on, mano-a-computero, the might of ChatGPT, who entered a story, which annoyingly scored some points.

The winners on the night were Mary Fraser with "Restyling an Icon”, Paul with “The Wedding Present”, and Lorraine with “Set in Their Ways”.

The incredible draw of THE MASSIVE CUP (tm) almost overwhelms the three winners of the competition, Paul, Lorraine, and Mary.

Neil Dickinson Interview

SW member Neil Dickinson was recently interviewed by Sue Atkins, the well-known parenting expert, about the inspiration behind his series of Scotch the Scare-go books.

See the full video here:

Guest Speaker - Dr Marion Watson

On Monday 15th April, our guest speaker was Dr Marion Watson Head of Operations at the Jenner Institute which is part of the Nuffield Department of medicine at Oxford University.

Marion oversees a wide range of clinical trials and research and development activities on vaccines for malaria, TB and emerging pathogens. Notably, since early 2020, Marion has been involved with vaccine trials for COVID-19.

Marion made the science of her work accessible to a bunch of writers and explained how the threat from this particular coronavirus has been diminished by the ongoing and vital vaccine campaign set against the part our own immune systems are playing. She talked about how Oxford University had underwritten funding for the early development of the vaccine in the absence of government funding and that now, many millions of doses are being freely distributed around the world. Marion talked about the need to be vigilant regarding mutations of Covid-19 and threats from the many other forms of coronavirus. She explained how the team at the Jenner institute has for many years been tracking the various forms of coronavirus so that when Covid-19 struck, they were prepared to focus their research effort and quickly design an effective vaccine to begin dealing with the pandemic. There was a very lively Q&A which covered the stupidity of the anti-vax social media campaign and one particular US president, and she talked freely about the work her team do in the areas of fighting TB and malaria. This was a truly fascinating and insightful evening which Marion had begun by recommending a book: the best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller and TV series by Richard Preston which focusses particularly on the outbreak of ebolaviruses.

Photos and report – Mike Pearcy

Conversation With Roger Stennett

Roger with his book of poems in tribute to Dylan Thomas

Our guest speaker 0n 24th April was Roger Stennett, a poet and playwright who will be the judge for our 2023 poetry competition.

Asked about his views on poetry, Roger made several points. He felt that there was no need for a poet to put him or herself into every piece of verse. Not all poetry needed to be about the poet. He took as his watchword the idea, based on the thoughts of Coleridge and Wordsworth, that poetry was about “emotion recollected in tranquillity”. Asked what he looked for in poetry (Roger is judging our competition) he said that ‘universality’ was important, the idea that what is written is accessible to all.

Roger is the son of the famous entertainer and comedian Stan Stennett, whom members of a certain vintage may recall. Roger claimed to be the only author who had written work for both Sooty and the Royal Shakespeare company.

Despite Zoom being so 2020, it allows Slough Writers to invite people from anywhere to speak at the group.

He went on to describe his writing life, starting as a dramatist and over a 40 year career producing plays for the theatre and both TV and film screenplays. He then had a career interlude working as a psychotherapist, before becoming a poet and writer of fiction for children and young adults. Roger told us that he had a ‘stock’ of 3,000 poems. He has published several collections of poetry, most recently a book of verse inspired by the life and work of Dylan Thomas.

He described the rather hand to mouth existence of the professional writer, out of financial necessity being forced to turn his hand to all sorts of creative forms.

A good turnout to listen to our competition judge.

At the end of his talk Roger read the group a poem he had written that morning. It was a riposte to Betjeman’s verse about Slough. Roger felt Betjeman was critical of Slough mainly “because it wasn’t Cheltenham”, a sentiment to which he took exception. A copy of the poem will be presented to the winner of our competition.

Report by Lee Taylor

The full video of the session is available here: (Roger Stennett discussion on YouTube). 

You can also find a lot of his poetry here - www.facebook.com/rogerpstennett

Results of Ted Jones Short Story Competition 2023

It was the results of the Ted Jones Trophy, short story competition , on the subject of “Change”.  Pat Pearcy and Emily Houghton presented the results  on behalf of Cippenham Book Club

Competition Results:

The judges handing Lorraine Forrest-Turner (centre) the Ted Jones Short Story Cup

1st Place - Lorraine Forrest-Turner - Loose Change

2nd Place - Lee Taylor - Faites Vos Jeux

3rd Place - Rob Kibble - The Big Issue

Highly Commended - Mark Starkey - All Good Things

A big thank you to the Judges, Cippenham Book Group and very well done to the winners 

Lorraine read “Loose Change”, A long series of seemingly trivial events, from a gambler dropping his “lucky penny”… to a caravan fire… to a  Pilot kept awake by his neighbour’s neglected dog, all lead to a major horrific and fatal accident.

Lee read, “Factes vos Jeux”.  A journalist  who has spent his life as an observer, rather than participant, encounters an enigmatic, attractive widow  at a casino.  She asks what he is running from and they spend the night together.  She disappears but he feels for the first time hopeful for the future.  Unfortunately for him, the timing is not good..

Mark read “All good things”.  Maisie is looking for a change to her life.  She consults with a fortune teller, Madam Spectre, who tells her to go out into the world because she sees  good things for Maisie.   And she’s right.  Maisie meets a handsome stranger, they fall in  love, move in together but there is something in her future  Madam Spectre did not foresee.

At the judges’ request, Philip read  “An English bag of food”. A destitute and traumatised ex member of Her Majesty’s Forces, is searching for food.  “Today is an Aldi day”. He targets shoppers at local supermarkets, planning his manoeuvres like a military operation, and talks constantly to “your Majesty”.  A very moving and brilliant portrayal of a man over the edge.

The judges from the Cippenham Book Group preparing to deliver their verdicts.

Lorraine-Forrest Turner, reading the winning entry.

Lee Taylor, reading the runner-up.

Rob Kibble, third.

A good crowd turned out for the results.

(Report by Sonya Weiss.) 

Copywriting

Sharing Experience at Slough Writers

At Slough Writers we don’t set out to teach writing – we develop as writers through sharing writing skills and writing experiences.

An excellent example of this approach occurred at a workshop led jointly by SW members Lorraine Forrest-Turner and Neil Dickenson on Monday 27th March. Both Neil and Lorraine are experienced copywriters and they shared their professional knowledge in this field with the group. Lorraine is a freelance copywriter and teacher, and Neil has had a varied career and now specialises in medical areas. Both writers talked about their professional careers and emphasised that sticking to deadlines and understanding the detail of a brief were vitally important. We learnt that creativity is key although clients often needed to be lead gently into doing the right thing.

Lorraine Forrest-Turner (L) and Neil Dickenson (R)

The presenters complimented each other and shared details of the copywriter’s daily life as well as many examples of successful campaigns. The evening finished with an exercise in which small groups of SW members suggested and brain-stormed ideas to create an advertisement for a very challenging client - Slough Writers.

It was an evening where we glimpsed the life of a professional writer and learned about the many areas where a productive cross-over existed between business writing and fiction – not least the four important elements of any campaign:  Grab the attention; build interest and involve the reader; create a desire and finally, make a clear call to action. One final piece of advice – avoid bullshit copy.

Sounds like good advice for any author.

(Report and action photos – Mike Pearcy. Lorraine’s headshot copyright Lorraine Forrest-Turner. Lorraine’s headshot courrtesy of Andrea MacLeod)