Following the success of Climbing the Mast, her collection of short stories and poems, Somewhere Else Associate member, Bridget Arregger has published her first novel Switching Switching, using Lulu.com, a printing service that costs only the price of a copy. Material must be in the correct format ready for printing and authors need to do all their own editing and marketing. Copies are printed on demand and can be made available on Lulu.com, Amazon and other websites.

Bridget loves to write speculative fiction, which includes fantasy and science fiction, and delves into themes of gender and transgender identity, sexual orientation, love and marriage.

Switching Switching was inspired by Bridget’s own struggles with combining a career with being wife and mother and explores the extent to which personal success is due to circumstances or individual attributes. She is hoping it will be adopted as a Reading Group favourite as it is proving to be a ‘love it or hate it’ book and provokes lively discussion.

Switching Switching is now on sale from Lulu.com at £9.50.

Stephen Connolly’s short story ‘Four Funerals and a Wedding’ has been accepted for publication in Scottish Literary magazine Far Off Places. The as yet untitled issue will appear later in 2018 and will be the last print edition before the magazine switches to online and podcast formats.

Stephen’s short short story ‘Fairy Tale Ending’ appeared in the very first issue of Far Off Places, Fairy Tales Retold, published in March 2013.

Somewhere Else Writers’ newest member, Frank McMahon, has had several poems  published in the past few weeks.

Five poems: I am a citizen; Shoes; Berlin 1933; Times like these and Universal Credit were published  on-line by Reuben Woolley’s ‘I am not a silent poet’ website. The site was set up to give poets an opportunity to protest about abuse and injustice.

Shoes and Berlin 1933 were inspired by a summer trip to Budapest and Berlin and to sites where hatred and intolerance were unleashed. The other poems come from deep concerns that our country is turning its back on the world and making it acceptable to hurt the most vulnerable people in society.

Universal Credit opens:

Learn this lesson: assume the supplicant’s
position, low before the arbiter.
Hang your petition on the ox’s horn and
pray as it turns and plods inside the keep.
Forty two days in the wilderness.

Two other poems: Sourdough and Evolution are published  in the latest edition of  ‘The Cannon’s Mouth’.

Three of Sophie Livingston’s stories have been sold to Woman’s Weekly magazine. ‘The Makeover’ is in the January 2018 edition of the magazine’s ‘Fiction Special’ and a further two stories: ‘Mavis Tank’ and ‘White Horses’ are due to appear later in the year.

The magazine was founded in 1911 to appeal to the growing class of office-employed women who sought a magazine for reading on their daily commute by train, tram and bus. It has a circulation of just under 300,000.

The countdown has begun! Just a few more days until the new series of The Inn on the Green is launched on Corinium Radio. Episode Four of the Cotswold’s own soap opera will be broadcast on Christmas Eve at 4.30pm. Coincidently, it is Christmas at the pub, Alicia is due to give birth, Jonathan’s ex wife is visiting, and the village Christmas tree is swaying dangerously in the mounting wind. Anything could happen.

Tune in to find out what does.

The episode will be repeated every Sunday at 4.30pm for the next four weeks. If you miss it, you can listen on this website by clicking on: ‘The Inn on the Green’.

An investigation into her family history led Gill Garrett on an extraordinary 150 year journey through the life stories and experiences of so called ordinary people.

Her book ‘Digging Up the Family’ is the fascinating result and members of Somewhere Else joined her to celebrate its launch at the final Writers in the Brewery meeting of the year on Tuesday.

Gill, a founder member of Somewhere Else, and now a member of the Catchword Writing Group said:  ‘I soon realized I would have to look much further than my own memories and family hearsay. To understand what had shaped their attitudes and beliefs, their opinions and principles, I would need a much broader insight into the social and political times in which they lived.’

The resulting stories are unique but universal, ordinary yet extraordinary. This is not a book about the great figures that forge history – it is a book for and about the majority of us, who live through it.

‘Digging Up The Family – A Lesson In Social History’ is published by Matador(ISBN:9781788038997) and is available from Troubador Publishing Ltd at £7.99.

The evening was sadly the last to be organized by writer Rona Laycock, who is taking a well-earned break after seven years of spearheading the monthly get together in Cirencester’s Brewery Arts Café. Until last year Rona also organized the annual Gloucestershire Writers’ Network competition as well as editing the literary magazine Graffiti and interviewing fellow writers in ‘The Writers’ Room’ on Corinium Radio.

Somewhere Else Writers would not exist without Rona, who taught all the founder members. Writers in the county owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for her energy and generosity of spirit. We wish her all the best with her future ventures.

Stephen Connolly’s script ‘The Destiny of Shoes’ has been short-listed for Off the Rock Productions ‘Sound Waves’ season of Audio Plays.

Stephen’s script was inspired by an exercise given by Paul Dodgson during a Radio drama workshop in February 2017 and tells the story of a pair of shoes who must learn to put aside their differences as they come to terms with the end of their working life.

A comic drama series, interviews with local writers, Abbey 900, an exploration of great novelists and how to write radio drama — these were the programmes broadcast  on Corinium Radio by Somewhere Else Writers in 2017. Even we were amazed at the variety when we met last week to review our programmes over the last twelve months and prepare next year’s schedule.

So what can we look forward to in 2018? First up, to lighten the dark winter days, is the next series of our popular drama ‘The Inn on the Green’. As we move into spring and summer, there will be more interviews with local writers and an anthology of prose and poetry on the topic of ‘Other Arts’. And who will be able to resist our April broadcast ‘Pigs in Literature’ (oink, oink)? I’ll certainly be tuning in for that.

You can find our programme ‘Somewhere Else Writers Present’ on Corinium Radio  at 4.30pm on the last Sunday of the month. It’s also available to listen again on the Corinium Radio website or on the Broadcasts tab of our own website where all our programmes are listed.

Happy listening.

Iris Anne Lewis