Writers in the Library, Cirencester, this Monday (12th January) at 2pm, features something new: some short poetry films created by Iris Anne Lewis and Frank McMahon. Each film will be introduced by its maker, and there will be time for further discussion.
The hour-long session is free. Refreshments! All welcome!
Our Writer of the month is Selwyn Morgan, possibly the group’s most widely travelled member. To launch our New Year, Selwyn has written Time Drills Its Way, a piece which looks back on his past and anticipates the year and all Time ahead. His novel, Going up Camborne Hill: The Serpent Ring, is available from Amazon, where you’ll also find Somewhere Else Writers’ Off the Wall, an anthology of stories and poems featuring QR code links to audio of the writers reading their work. To find this and other works published by the group, click here.
To read Selwyn’s Time Drills its Way. click here.
2025 was a productive and successful year for the writers group, and we look forward to a great 2026.
Iris Anne Lewis is delighted that her poem ‘Manordeifi’ has been highly commended in the Maesteg Poetry Competition. The competition was arranged as one of the events to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the town of Maesteg in the industrial heartlands of South Wales. The aim of the competition was to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Wales, and entries were welcomed from anyone with a strong connection to Wales.
Iris’ poem features the small Pembrokeshire town of Manordeifi and its old parish church. Now disused, the church features the old box pews (some with fireplaces!). A coracle hangs in the porch, affording parishioners a means of getting to and from the church when the surrounding fields flooded.
Our last poem of 2025 is ‘Nettles’ by Frank McMahon from his latest collection ‘Joining the Ring.’ You can read the poem here. ‘Joining the Ring’ and other publications by Frank and members of the group can be found on our publications page here. Clicking on the image of the book will take you to the relevant Amazon page.
Writer Frank McMahon is celebrating a fantastic couple of weeks after appearing on ITV’s This Morning show as one of the winners of the national Poetry Together initiative.
He performed his winning poem ‘Pomegranate’ in front of an audience of 500 in a live show at Manchester’s Aviva Studios.
The event was compered by Gyles Brandreth, who originated the idea for the prize.
Poetry Together is in its seventh year and is designed to bring young and old closer through the joys of poetry. Supported by Queen Camilla, it has seen over 1000 care homes and schools participate, from as far afield as Aberdeen, Bradford, Bristol, Blackpool, Caerphilly, Cambridge, Cornwall, Glasgow, Huddersfield, Hereford, Dover, Llandaff, Londonderry, Liverpool, Leicester, Portsmouth, Sussex, and dozens of other locations around the UK. Last year, schools in Greece, Romania, Dubai, the UAE, Nigeria, and the USA signed up
The audience in Manchester was made up of teachers, students and grandparents and was followed by workshops and performances by some of Manchester’s finest poets, including Matt Goodfellow, Ruth Awolola, and Nicole May.
Frank, who, as well as being a winner, has been working on the project with schools in Gloucestershire, said, “It was a day of great energy and creativity, a joy from start to finish.”
If you would like to hear Frank read ‘Pomegranate,’ it will be broadcast on BBC Upload with Adam Crowther. It can be heard tonight (Thursday, November 27) on BBC Radio Gloucestershire & BBC Radio Wiltshire from 6pm, and again, on Saturday evening on BBC Radio Gloucestershire, BBC Radio Wiltshire and BBC Radio Somerset between 6-8pm. You can listen on your radio or via the free BBC Sounds app.
In other news, Frank also heard that his story ‘The Quay’ has been published in an anthology of novellas by Tim Saunders Publications, under the title of the Paul Cave Prize for literature. His entry made the top four. The anthology is available on Amazon on Kindle for £9.99 or in paperback for £25.00
This month’s poems are by Norman (Jock) Smith, who has been voted chair of the group for a second year.
Norman’s writing records thoughts and feelings that result from life’s experiences. He captures fleeting moments, distilling human reality into poetry, focusing on the dark and light of existence.
You can read two of his haiku here.
This month’s poem is Graham Bruce Fletcher’s verse, “An Ode to Wednesday.” It’s a sort of in-joke as Wednesday is the day Somewhere Else Writers gather to share examples of their work and discuss the craft of writing.
The poem is also a clever play on the way different languages find their own means of describing the same things, often illuminating something of the character of the people who speak that language. Where English often uses words ‘borrowed’ from past invaders, such as the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans, the Germans call Wednesday ‘midweek’ (Mittwoch) and the French name it after Mercury (Mercredi). You can read the poem by visiting our site and clicking on the Poem of the Month icon on our webpage, or by clicking here.
The next Writers in the Library will take place on Monday, 13th October. Writer Christine Griffin will be the speaker, and there will be refreshments and an open mic. Christine has been writing poetry and short fiction for many years and is widely published both nationally and internationally, including in Acumen, Graffiti, Poetry Super Highway, The Dawntreader and Writing Magazine. She has performed her work at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival and the Cheltenham Literature Festival. The event runs from 2pm to 3pm at Cirencester Library and is free to all.
Somewhere Else Writers Group 