I was thrilled to receive the Group's "Newcomer of the Year" award in 2024 and "Writer of the Year" award in 2025! I am a retired business school academic, familiar with writing scholarly articles and textbooks, but creative writing has been an entirely new challenge! I turned to it as a retirement hobby in 2023, as it seemed to help me to deal with some of my health issues. My writing has improved a great deal thanks to feedback from fellow members. Some of my haiku poems have been published in anthologies and I have had some success with short story submissions to BBC Upload. Friends in Slough Writers' Group nobly endured and critiqued some scenes from the early drafts of my speculative fiction novel at our manuscript evenings. Their encouragement to persevere carried me through a gruelling editing and re-editing process. "Heroes and Traitors" is now available to pre-order from Troubador Publishing: Heroes and Traitors | Troubador Publishing. I live with some resilient houseplants in Marlow.