Crime novelist Debbie Young revealed the secrets of her success at an evening hosted by Wotton Writers Group this month. Debbie, who organises of the Hawkesbury Upton literature festival each April, is the author of the seven Sophie Sayers village mysteries and the St Bride’s School series of funny-feel-good books. Members of Somewhere Else were warmly welcomed by the Wotton Group who had invited us to join them for the evening in North Nibley Village Hall. You can find out more about Debbie’s writing life – and her books here.

The Seafarer, a poem by Iris Anne Lewis, has just been published in Issue 2 of Seaborne Magazine, a digital literary and arts magazine.Based in Cornwall, the editors are committed to helping keep our seas clean and support the wild and marine life who are dependent on it and will be donating a percentage their sales to local charities who help protect the oceans and marine life.
Issue 2, with its theme of storms, omens and monsters, has contributions from writers and artists around the world and includes poetry, fiction, non-fiction and artwork all about the sea. Why not head over to the magazine website here and treat yourself to a copy?
35% of the revenue from sales of this issue will be donated to Surfers against Sewage, a charity that helps fight against ocean pollution.

Massive congratulations to Frank, Iris and Graham for their success in Graffiti magazine’s issue 27 competition.

Frank was runner up with his poem “Fingerprints”, Iris was commended twice for her poems “Monastery of Geghard” and “Votive”, and Graham was commended for his prose piece “Withheld”.

The full results are:

Poetry Winner : Marilyn Timms – The Shepherd’s Two Pocket Abacus

Runners up: Elizabeth Horrocks – Penelope Speaks

Frank McMahon – Fingerprints

Commended: Iris Lewis – Monastery of Geghard

Christine Griffin – Still Life

Judith van Dijkhuisen – Visiting the Hospice

Iris Lewis – Votive

Prose results

Winner: Joy Mawby – Journal of Mary Hughes

Runner up: Christine Griffin – Playing Piano at Joe’s Bar

Commended: Graham Bruce Fletcher -Withheld

Maggie Goddard – The Novice Deceiver

Marilyn Timms – Witness Statement

Sue Johnston – Eggshells

This month’s featured writer is Graham Bruce Fletcher, who was born in Leeds, Yorkshire and brought up between Yorkshire and Cirencester.  He has written for as long as he can remember, and hopes to continue to remember for as long as he can write. He has worked in many different fields, several offices (and other indoor locations), and travelled around Europe as a Marketing Director in the medical industry until he stopped inflicting himself upon employers to focus on writing both fiction and music, having retired at the age of fifty due to the opportunity he found in having survived cancer.

He is interested in almost everything, except reality TV shows, fashion and fast cars. He is a keen observer of other people’s behaviour, and an eavesdropper on private conversations with the intention of stealing ideas for his writing. He is particularly eager to hear the strange details of other people’s lives, a task he finds much easier now that people do not hesitate to hold intimate personal conversations loudly and in public on their mobile phones.  Any resemblance between real people and events and his stories is likely to be intentional.

Graham’s short story ‘The Way Ahead’ is featured in this month’s Cirencester Scene. You can read it by clicking on the story of the month logo on the Somewhere Else Writers’ website, or here

Iris Anne Lewis’s poem ‘Aberfan’ is published in the Autumn issue of the online poetry magazine ’The High Window’. You can read Iris’s poem here along with a selection of homegrown and international poetry from 34 other poets.