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.

National Poetry Day saw the announcement that Iris Anne Lewis’s poem ‘Swedish Fairytale’ has been highly commended in the Poetry Society’s Stanza competition.  

It is the culmination of an amazing year of successes for the group’s writers, which were celebrated at the annual meeting in September. 

Iris has had 17 poems published in journals and anthologies this year (Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis, Dawn Treader. The High Window, Wildfire Words, The Elements Anthology, and Ink, Sweat and Tears). She has also been placed in four poetry competitions, including the Wales Poetry Award 2022. 

Frank McMahon’s poems have appeared in four anthologies: The Wild Night Sky, Dialect Writers, Yew Tree Press and GWN Voices. Individual poems have appeared in Wildfire Words, Acumen, Erbacce and Sarasvati. He also read at the 2022 Cheltenham Poetry Festival and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.  

Peter Deacon published his second novel, The Long Double Cross and another novel is well on its way. Sophie Livingston’s novel The Green March Hotel has attracted the interest of an agent after being one of the 12 finalists in the 2022 Mslexia First Novel competition; Selwyn Morgan was Highly Commended in the National Association of Writers’ Groups competition for his short story, The COOP Hamper, and Dave Walklett successfully completed his master’s in creative writing and is hard at work on his first novel.  

Frank and Iris have been involved in co-founding ‘Writers in the Library’ — a monthly event with guest authors open to all.  

Most importantly, the group continues to encourage and support all its members in their writing ambitions, whether or not they are aiming for publication, with weekly reading and critiquing of work. 

The guest speaker at the next Writers’ in the Library session on October 9th is author Chloe Jacquet.

Chloë is a multicultural, multifaceted, multi-slam winning spoken word artist based in Gloucestershire. She was 2017 Oxford Hammer & Tongue slam champion and reached the semi-finals of the National Slam Finals at the Royal Albert Hall in both 2018 and 2019. 

With a preference for straight talking and a penchant for rhymes and opinions, Chloë’s poetry is both entertaining and meaningful. Her work deals with a wide variety of subjects, ranging from workplace discrimination and mental health, to the pressures placed on modern men, via her short term relationship with a biscuit. 

As well as her own headline slots at poetry nights and festivals across the UK, she has supported artists such as Elvis McGonagall, Joelle Taylor and Hollie McNish and her work has featured several times on the BBC. She has been published in several magazines and anthologies and her poem “First Festival Back” was selected by the BBC to be included in a special archive at The British Library of Covid-related materials “for the benefit of the nation”.  

Her first collection Take It By The Line is published by Black Eyes Publishing UK and is available now. 

Located upstairs in Cirencester Library, sessions run for an hour on the second Monday of each month at 2pm. Tea and coffee are available, and the sessions are informal and friendly. You are sure of a warm welcome.

This month’s poem, Gásadalur, was written by Iris Anne Lewis, a founder member of the Somewhere Else Writers group.

Published in print and online and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Iris has been featured in the Silver Branch Series of Black Bough Poetry, won 1st prize in the Gloucestershire Poetry Society competition 2020 and was highly commended in this year’s Poetry Wales Award. She won 1st prize in the last-ever Graffiti competition and is a runner-up in this year’s GWN competition. She’ll be reading at the Cheltenham Literary Festival this year for the seventh time. In 2018 she founded Wordbrew, a Cirencester-based group of poets. Gásadalur was first published in Wildfire Words. You can read it by clicking here. Iris will be among the writers representing Somewhere Else at The Huddle at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on Sunday, 15^th October at 4.30pm.

This month’s featured author is Peter Deacon, e author of two novels. Peter served in senior positions within the Ministry of Defence before starting a successful business. He’s a Chartered Engineer with a degree in electrical engineering and an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, where he studied under several accomplished authors.

His first novel, The Time Just Before, is the story of a Lancaster bomber pilot during the Second World War. He recreates the atmosphere of being part of a force which undertakes highly dangerous missions in which survival is unlikely. You can read an excerpt here

Peter’s second novel, The Long Double Cross, is a crime mystery that will keep you guessing until the final chapter.

Peter’s books are available on Amazon here

Peter is now writing a sequel for release later this year. He intends this will become a series.

We are delighted to announce that our own Iris Anne Lewis has been named runner-up in the poetry section of the annual Gloucestershire Writers’ Network Competition.

There were more than 220 entries on the theme of journeys, and Judges Jane Bailey and Philip Rush
were impressed with the standard. Many congratulations to all the winners. You will be able to hear the winners and runners-up read their work at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival on Sunday 8th
October from 7. 00 – 8.15 pm in the Regency Suite, Queens Hotel.

Winning Prose Piece There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Horse Pill
by Stephanie Carty
Prose Runners-up Travelling with Mary by Sophie Carabine
The Sleeping House by Tim Jeffries
Pogácsca by Alex Wardrop
Highly Commended Embers of Memory by Catherine Awel
Mrs Brown’s Boys by Sue Jay Johnston
Running Free by Pam Keevil
Freight by Imogen Rae
Skin Deep by Marilyn Timms

Winning Poem Shift: self-portrait as a set of watercolour pencils
by Sarah Hemings
Poetry Runners-up From Artist to Model —- The Journey of Dorelia McNeill
by Iris Anne Lewis
Puncture Repair by Chris Hemingway
Her Husband by Pauline Masurel
Highly Commended Trans-Siberia in the April Thaw by Catherine Baker
Journey to Bukhara by Clair Chilvers
How to Mend a Broken Heart by Gill Garrett
These Hands by Carol Sheppard
Leavings by Mark Woods

This month’s short story is ‘Secret Recipes’ written by Sophie Livingston.

It first appeared in Woman’s Weekly, and was featured on BBC Radio Wiltshire during the Covid pandemic. A recorded version is permanently available at The Improbable Book Cafe by clicking on the image above. If you prefer to read the story, it is available by clicking here.