Weekly Meetings
Meetings of the writing group take place in the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust Stone Building, The Wharf, Newbury, West Berkshire, at 10.30 a.m. most Fridays; they are open to all, irrespective of experience and age, and new members are welcome.
Our meetings have varied themes and literary activities, examples include:
- workshops and discussions of members' writing, providing mutual support and friendly criticism
- reviews and discussions on the life and works of a specific writer
- workshops and presentations hosted by visiting guest writers
- more formal readings, often with members of other local groups
- writing exercises on a set theme; or inspired by music, pictures and objects brought in by members
the pictures below are of wood-carvings by group member Don Carter; © Don Carter, 2013.
Further information on Don's wood-carvings can be obtained via the contact details on this web-site.
Our meetings have varied themes and literary activities, examples include:
- workshops and discussions of members' writing, providing mutual support and friendly criticism
- reviews and discussions on the life and works of a specific writer
- workshops and presentations hosted by visiting guest writers
- more formal readings, often with members of other local groups
- writing exercises on a set theme; or inspired by music, pictures and objects brought in by members
the pictures below are of wood-carvings by group member Don Carter; © Don Carter, 2013.
Further information on Don's wood-carvings can be obtained via the contact details on this web-site.
Other activities
We have produced seven anthologies of the group's work:
- From an Upper Room (2010)
- Diamond Facets (2012)
- Inspirations from an Upper Room (2013)
- Now We Are Sixteen (Tawny Owl Press, 2015)
- Autumn Moods (Tawny Owl Press, 2016)
- From the Wharf (Tawny Owl Press, 2017)
- And This Was Us (2019)
We have produced seven anthologies of the group's work:
- From an Upper Room (2010)
- Diamond Facets (2012)
- Inspirations from an Upper Room (2013)
- Now We Are Sixteen (Tawny Owl Press, 2015)
- Autumn Moods (Tawny Owl Press, 2016)
- From the Wharf (Tawny Owl Press, 2017)
- And This Was Us (2019)
Publicatons by the writers' group
click on the images for further information
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And This Was Us was produced to coincide with Gareth Alun Roberts' departure to Aberystwyth. Compiled by Terence Brick with an illustration by Don Carter and photographs by Robin Read and Gina Graham. Published by Tawny Owl Press, 2019
On-Line Publications
Click on a Title to open the publication
Copyright for all on-line publications remains with West Berkshire Writers unless otherwise specified
THE MISSING PAGE
PERCHANCE TO DREAM
Links to other web-sites
Publications by individual members
One Step Closer is Sophie's first novel and has been published in a Kindle edition with a paperback version on Amazon. Its first UK reviewer said:-
Gripping Read from Start to Finish
Very good and enjoyable read. It kept me interested from start to finish. Looking forward to reading more from this new and talented author.
Stomach twisting psychological thriller. Alex Clark is haunted by an entity that wants to consume her withered soul and will stop at nothing to take it. With new love and old friends, Alex tracks down the source of the brutal murders happening around her, losing those she loves along the way. Alex learns that with every minute we are all but One Step Closer to finding our purpose, our strengths, and are all One Step Closer to death.
Gripping Read from Start to Finish
Very good and enjoyable read. It kept me interested from start to finish. Looking forward to reading more from this new and talented author.
Stomach twisting psychological thriller. Alex Clark is haunted by an entity that wants to consume her withered soul and will stop at nothing to take it. With new love and old friends, Alex tracks down the source of the brutal murders happening around her, losing those she loves along the way. Alex learns that with every minute we are all but One Step Closer to finding our purpose, our strengths, and are all One Step Closer to death.
The Chumblies is a delightful book written with a four-year-old in mind by Jean Kraushaar. It is a cheerfully illustrated adventure with a happy ending.
What's Not Wasted
by Gareth Alun Roberts
Gareth has had poetry published in various magazines and anthologies. This is his first collection, which takes us from the wild Atlantic shores of Cape Wrath in Scotland to Antarctic wastes, via the Thames valley, Wales and Cuba. The poems cover diverse themes and subjects, but all attempt to explore the many wildernesses of place and self, to celebrate that these wilder lands are not wasted.
Gareth has now returned to Wales after living in Newbury and the far north of Scotland. He hasn't yet lived in Antarctica.
Click on Gareth Alun Roberts: poetry to go to his web-site
by Gareth Alun Roberts
Gareth has had poetry published in various magazines and anthologies. This is his first collection, which takes us from the wild Atlantic shores of Cape Wrath in Scotland to Antarctic wastes, via the Thames valley, Wales and Cuba. The poems cover diverse themes and subjects, but all attempt to explore the many wildernesses of place and self, to celebrate that these wilder lands are not wasted.
Gareth has now returned to Wales after living in Newbury and the far north of Scotland. He hasn't yet lived in Antarctica.
Click on Gareth Alun Roberts: poetry to go to his web-site
The Lion and the Asp
by Brian Medhurst In the seventh century a Byzantine Emperor Justinian II is deposed and mutilated by having his nose cut. Eight years later after marrying an inspirational ‘gypsy’ princess, Theodora, he attempts to regain his throne. He is helped in this endeavour by an odd collection of adventurers and hangers-on. We learn the stories of Justinian’s principal friends and supporters; Michael his ex-Chamberlain, his Viking bodyguard, Harald and Honorius, a defrocked priest who is Justinian’s spy in Constantinople. Much of Justinian’s story is told by Honorius and chronicles his own search for redemption. The reader is rewarded with an epic tale of conflict, love and betrayal. The situation, the development of characters, and the resolution are well thought through and make an interesting tale. The author has clearly researched his characters and period of history. |
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Common Words
by Steve Wallis
A collection of Greenham Common words, arranged by a common man to fit a common saying. Its forty poems reflect the natural and political histories of the Common, its visitors and its residents, from the Ice Age through the Cold War to a present hopeful of a future.
Steve Wallis is a poet and storyteller who has had the good fortune to live in Newbury, conveniently situated for walking on Greenham Common.
by Steve Wallis
A collection of Greenham Common words, arranged by a common man to fit a common saying. Its forty poems reflect the natural and political histories of the Common, its visitors and its residents, from the Ice Age through the Cold War to a present hopeful of a future.
Steve Wallis is a poet and storyteller who has had the good fortune to live in Newbury, conveniently situated for walking on Greenham Common.
Sequences
by Terence Brick
These poems are neither easy nor cosy; they were written on promontories and peninsulas; in Mediæval walled cities. The Irish poems were written in western Scotland, the Italian ones were written in France. They have never been written on the back of a menu.
Terence Brick is a London-born Irish poet and translator. His poems have appeared in a variety of publications including the PEN, Arts Council and Salmon Poetry anthologies and a number of little magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Orbis, Iota and Envoi. Sequences is his first collection. He lives in Newbury and is a founding member of West Berkshire Writers.
by Terence Brick
These poems are neither easy nor cosy; they were written on promontories and peninsulas; in Mediæval walled cities. The Irish poems were written in western Scotland, the Italian ones were written in France. They have never been written on the back of a menu.
Terence Brick is a London-born Irish poet and translator. His poems have appeared in a variety of publications including the PEN, Arts Council and Salmon Poetry anthologies and a number of little magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Orbis, Iota and Envoi. Sequences is his first collection. He lives in Newbury and is a founding member of West Berkshire Writers.
This is Sri Lanka is the first volume in a projected trilogy of Gina's time in 'A Land Like No Other'
Mum’s Clare
A Mother’s Eye View of Indonesia
by Gina Graham
My friends and family were astonished, even appalled, that I would be travelling on my own to the other side of the world. I had never done anything like this before. I intended to travel light unaware I was carrying my baggage in a Pandora’s box with my past ready to fly out and embarrass and confuse me. Naively I boarded a plane at Heathrow, confident that Clare would meet me at Jakarta, as she had repeatedly promised. But Clare would succumb to ‘jam karet’ and be nowhere in sight when I arrived. Instead, a stranger greeted me with, “Hello, are you Mum’s Clare?”
This true story is the personal adventure of an ordinary person spending time in mysterious places with truly remarkable people. My 20 year old daughter Clare invited me to join her in Indonesia, the country she had grown to love during her Gap year. Neither of us knew that July 1997 would be the beginning of Indonesia’s financial crisis and that future event would make a similar visit difficult.
For further information on 'Mum's Clare' contact via email [email protected]
A Mother’s Eye View of Indonesia
by Gina Graham
My friends and family were astonished, even appalled, that I would be travelling on my own to the other side of the world. I had never done anything like this before. I intended to travel light unaware I was carrying my baggage in a Pandora’s box with my past ready to fly out and embarrass and confuse me. Naively I boarded a plane at Heathrow, confident that Clare would meet me at Jakarta, as she had repeatedly promised. But Clare would succumb to ‘jam karet’ and be nowhere in sight when I arrived. Instead, a stranger greeted me with, “Hello, are you Mum’s Clare?”
This true story is the personal adventure of an ordinary person spending time in mysterious places with truly remarkable people. My 20 year old daughter Clare invited me to join her in Indonesia, the country she had grown to love during her Gap year. Neither of us knew that July 1997 would be the beginning of Indonesia’s financial crisis and that future event would make a similar visit difficult.
For further information on 'Mum's Clare' contact via email [email protected]
Margaret Hodges is a practicing artist who has worked in a variety of media. Words have been a key component of many pieces and in recent years she has focused more on writing.
'I write now where I used to paint
I always wrote - private recollections
Reflections. findings
Clearing my mind but also making, creating'
Her first book was written 1968-2017 in bouts between years of studio and on-site activities. Her second book, written between 2017 and 2020, contains poems gathered in 'Sets' that relate to the dance we perform to life's rhythms.
'I write now where I used to paint
I always wrote - private recollections
Reflections. findings
Clearing my mind but also making, creating'
Her first book was written 1968-2017 in bouts between years of studio and on-site activities. Her second book, written between 2017 and 2020, contains poems gathered in 'Sets' that relate to the dance we perform to life's rhythms.
Fil Reid’s first Arthurian novel Guinevere : The Dragon Ring secured her a contract with Dragonblade Publishing after winning their Writestuff contest in the USA in 2021.
Now she has been voted gold medalist in the Readers’ Favourite Book Awards for 2022.
Fil started writing at the age of five when her parents bought her a child’s typewriter and most of her stories then were centred on her love of ponies. When she was eleven she adapted the book her class was reading in English into a play which the class performed in lesson time.
In The Dragon Ring, Gwen, a 21st-century girl, has been spirited back to the Dark Ages where she becomes Guinevere, wife to King Arthur. That is the most obvious departure from Malory but there are others - topographical ones. The sword in the stone is situated at Viroconium (present day Wroxeter) and Arthur’s stronghold is at present day South Cadbury Castle, not far from Glastonbury.
Fil’s historical fiction spans a trilogy of novels the details of which can be found at www.filreid. There are three more books to come in the series.
Now she has been voted gold medalist in the Readers’ Favourite Book Awards for 2022.
Fil started writing at the age of five when her parents bought her a child’s typewriter and most of her stories then were centred on her love of ponies. When she was eleven she adapted the book her class was reading in English into a play which the class performed in lesson time.
In The Dragon Ring, Gwen, a 21st-century girl, has been spirited back to the Dark Ages where she becomes Guinevere, wife to King Arthur. That is the most obvious departure from Malory but there are others - topographical ones. The sword in the stone is situated at Viroconium (present day Wroxeter) and Arthur’s stronghold is at present day South Cadbury Castle, not far from Glastonbury.
Fil’s historical fiction spans a trilogy of novels the details of which can be found at www.filreid. There are three more books to come in the series.