Novelist Pam Keevil will be talking about her latest book at Cirencester Library this Monday afternoon (January 8). Her talk will be followed by an open mic session. All are welcome. The hour-long event starts at 2pm.

Our poem of the month is Monday Morning by Norman Smith.

Norman started writing at school for the magazine The Retfordian. As a student, he wrote short stories for The Irish Mountaineering Club magazine on his climbing exploits in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Alps.

He discovered haiku while in Japan and was inspired to express contemporary thoughts in the short form. He loves the fact that there are no capitals or punctuation! Norman said: ‘For me, writing is about recording thoughts and feelings about people and places. It’s a joy to portray love in words.’ He adds that Somewhere Else Writers Group in Cirencester have helped him to explore his work with positive encouragement and care. In his spare time, Norman reads and visits Cotswold Saxon churches. You can read his poem, Monday Morning here.

Congratulations to Iris Anne Lewis, whose poem ‘The World Tilts’ is featured in Ink Sweat & Tears this month. The prestigious, UK-based webzine runs an annual Twelve Day of Christmas feature highlighting specific works on each day. ‘The World Tilts’ will be featured on December 21.

There will be a chance to hear more of Iris’s work this Monday ( December 11) when she is the guest speaker at Writers in the Library, a monthly event at Cirencester Library from 2pm to 3pm. Everyone is welcome.

Our poet of the month is Frank McMahon, who imagines mid-winter life in pre-Christian times in “Winter Bleak”.

Frank has been widely published, including two collected volumes of work, “At the Storm’s Edge” and “ A Different Land”, both produced by Palewell Press. Last year he won the GWN Poetry Prize, and this year, read at both the Cheltenham Poetry and Literature Festivals.

He’s also helping promote the Poetry Together Initiative, which brings children and older people together to share the pleasure of poetry. He’s one of the founding members of the monthly Writers in the Library sessions.

His third collection of poems, “The Light Will Always Return”, is being published by Tim Saunders Publishers in April 2024. 

You can read “Winter Bleak” here.

Writers in the Library, Cirencester, will hold a special event to support the national initiative, ‘Poetry Together’ on Monday, November 13th, from 2pm to 3pm.

Pupils from Powell’s School will be sharing their poems on the theme of “Happiness.” 

Poetry Together aims to bring children and older people together to share the pleasure of poetry.

Older people are invited to come along to read their own poems on this theme, max. 14 lines.

Among those appearing on the stage at last month’s Cheltenham Literature Festival was Graham Bruce Fletcher, who read a Drabble – a story of exactly 100 words – about the way writers’-group members enter lots of competitions!  There’s even a Drabble in the group’s anthology “Off The Wall” available from Amazon, which also features recordings of group members reading their stories and poems which you can hear by scanning QR codes alongside the printed versions.

Graham has been writing since before he went to primary school. His work has been featured in a wide variety of publications, and performed at many spoken-word events.  He has also been an editor and written non fiction, journalism and commercial copy.

You can read ‘Competition’  here.

Somewhere Else Writers made their debut as a group at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. Although many members have read as individuals at the Times-sponsored event, the group as a whole featured in a half hour slot in the festival’s ‘Huddle’, performing a mixture of poetry, prose, and drama. The event drew a crowd from both Waterstone’s bookshop, and the food hall, with extra chairs being drawn up so that people could listen. Many congratulations to all those who took part.

This month’s poem is by Tina Baker.  ‘Childhood Clips’ is included in the group’s anthology “Off the Wall” available from Amazon, and you can hear Tina read it by visiting her page on the group website here.

Tina began writing as a young child and loved to create puppet plays which she performed in her front garden in the hope of entertaining passersby.

As an adult, she had a variety of jobs, including the design and production of technical manuals, assisting an editor in the heady world of publishing occupational health and safety journals and, finally, organising major events.

Later in life, she remembered the pleasure of creating stories, so she undertook a two-year creative writing course, and this encouraged her to write her first novel, which she hopes to be published, one day.