Poster for CWG

Why not display this poster where potential members might see it? This is how:

• Click on the above image. That will open a larger version.
• Right click and select Save as.
• Choose a place on your computer to save the image.
• After the download, find the image and print it.

Easy!

Railway Club Venue

From June 3, 2008, the Coventry Writer's Group will meet at

Railway Club (see map below)
91-92, Spon End, Coventry, West Midlands CV1 3HF
024 7625 6478

We meet on first Tuesday of every month. All welcome. No experience necessary!


View Larger Map

Change of name for venue

Please note, the Tam O' Shanter has been sold and the new owners have renamed it the Jolly Beggers

prize winners

Booker Prize winners last 10 years

2007: "The Gathering" Anne Enright
2006: "The Inheritance of Loss" Kiran Desai
2005: The Sea John Banville

2004: The Line of Beauty Alan Holinghurst
2003: Vernon God Little DBC Pierre
2002: Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
2001: True History Of The Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey
2000: The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood
1999: Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee
1998: Amsterdam, by Ian McEwan
1997: The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy

Winners of the Guardian Prize

1997 Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

1998 Jackie Kay, Trumpet

1999 Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed

with Our Families

2000 Zadie Smith, White Teeth

2001 Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, or the Smartest Kid on Earth

2002 Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

2003 Robert MacFarlane, Mountains of the Mind

2004 Armand Marie Leroi: Mutants

2005 Alexander Masters: Stuart

Nobel prize for Literature

2006: Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe)
2006: Orhan Pamuk (Turkey)
2005: Harold Pinter (Britain)
2004: Elfriede Jelinek (Austria)
2003 : JOHN COETZEE (South Africa)
2002 : IMRE KERTESZ (Hungary)
2001 : VIDIADHAR SURAJPRASAD NAIPAUL (India)
2000 : GAO XINGJIAN (China)
1999 : GUNTHER GRASS (Germany)
1998 : JOSE SARAMAGO (Portugal)
1997 : DARIO FO (Italy)
1996 : WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA (Poland)

Pulitzer Prize

Cormac McCarthy: "The Road" (2007)
Geraldine Brooks: "March" (2006)
Marilynne Robinson: Gilead" (2005)
Edward Jones "The Known World" (2004)

(the rest wouldn't copy in the right way: you'll have to look them up yourself.)

Winners of the Whitbread/Costa prize

Novel · 1997: Jim Crace Being Dead · 1998: Barbara Trapido The Travelling Hornplayer · 1999: Rose Tremain Music and Silence · 2000: Matthew Kneale English Passengers · 2001: Patrick Neate Twelve Bar Blues · 2002: Michael Frayn Spies · 2003: Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time · 2004: Andrea Levy: Small Island · 2005: Ali Smith: The Accidental

Poetry · 1997 Ted Hughes Tales from Ovid · 1998 Ted Hughes Birthday Letters · 1999 Seamus Heaney Beowulf · 2000 John Burnside The Asylum Dance · 2001 Selima Hill Bunny · 2002 Paul Farley The Ice Age · 2003 Don Paterson Landing Light · 2004 Michael-Symmons Roberts: Corpus · 2005 Christopher Logue: Cold Calls

November Newsletter

Coventry Writers Group

Newsletter.

Tuesday 6^rd November 2007

Chair: Mike Sherratt, 34 Bexfield Close, Allesley Village, Coventry CV5 9BL (telephone 02476 – 405232. E-mail: michael.sherratt1@btopenworld.com

Secretary: Christine Rutherford 23 Frances Road Harbury Warks CV33 9JG

(tel 01926 613757 e-mail krismonsen@btopenworld.com)

1. Chair’s Notes –
1. Christmas dinner will be at the harvester in Allesley Village on Birmingham Road Friday 14^th December. Significant or insignificant others welcome. Please let Maxine know asap if you intend to go.
2. Poem about Coventry – free entry.
3. Literary Prizes – look at winners Anne Enright won the Booker, Doris Lessing won the Nobel. List of winners for approx. the last 10 years attached for your meditations. We need to know what is thought well of in literary criticism these days.
4. Bring and share nibbles next session 4^th December.

2. Apologies None
3. Correspondence/info/notes none as such.
4. Achievements
1. Maxine had Life Underground accepted for the Four Shires
5. Round table.
1. Phil shared some observations from his reader.

i. A 1^st book has to fit the publisher’s criteria exactly. Once you get established, you can be more adventurous.

ii. It must be marketable in WHSmith.

iii. Is too much information crowded together?

iv. The problem of pace is to slow down without waffling.

v. 3 rounded characters are probably the maximum you need.

vi. Point of view – is from one character all through, though the perspective can change in different chapters. There was some discussion on this.

2. Maxine is working on a feature article.
3. Chris has to get her courage in hand and send her book off before New Year.
4. Margaret has to finish hers by New Year.

6. Readings
1. Pam’s poem A Coventry Girl Suggested she try to write in different forms, not rhyming couplets.
2. Mike: So very Like You.
3. Phil: A Photograph Remembered.
4. Margaret: Chapter 5 of Christopher from Vladivostok.

7. AOB The new owners of the Tam O’ Shanter have rearranged the premises, so it is harder for us to be somewhere quiet. Discussed a change of venue and discounted private houses as it discourages new members. Agreed to think about alternative venues.
8. Exercise for December / January – write a half hour play set in a kitchen/diner. It must contain some comic lines. 3 to 6 characters. The workshop idea from last month did not materialise.

Newsletter October 2007

Coventry Writers Group

Newsletter.

Tuesday 3^rd October 2007

Chair: Mike Sherratt, 34 Bexfield Close, Allesley Village, Coventry CV5 9BL (telephone 02476 – 405232. E-mail: michael.sherratt1@btopenworld.com

Secretary: Christine Rutherford 23 Frances Road Harbury Warks CV33 9JG

(tel 01926 613757 e-mail krismonsen@btopenworld.com)

1. Chair’s Notes – Maxine’s new email is maxineburns@sky.com without the capitals.
2. Apologies Mary Ogilvy
3. Correspondence/info/notes

· Friends Meeting House in Hill Street do a writing course under the auspices of Warwick University.

· Warwick Words Literary Festival Thursday - Sunday

· ***CHRISTMAS DINNER*** 7.30 Friday December 14^th Harvester Restaurant. Suitable for all, £13.00 Christmas menu with 3-4 choices for each course and a really good salad bar. £5 deposit PLEASE BRING SOME CASH TO THE NEXT MEETING!

4. Achievements
1. Ann: Dogs Monthly; Collectors Gazette; Telegraph; editing of the third book of her trilogy n its final stage of editing. Ann brought the ms and the corrections to show how it is done.
2. Brenda had a letter published in Warwickshire Life.
3. Mike won 3^rd prize in Scenes of Clerical Life competition. Chris R was meant to bring the judges comments but forgot them so they are attached with this newsletter.
4. Chris Jarvis wrote the ‘offstage’ scenes in The Holmes Service which was performed by the Wheatsheaf players.
5. Phil has spoken to a professional reader and a BBC producer, whom he met at the Festival of Science and both agreed to read his book.
5. Round table.
1. Roddy Doyle’s path to success is about his self-publishing victory in a book which is 75% dialogue, which proves the rules are always flexible.
2. Ordinary writing is not like literature and good writing is not written to a formula.
3. A writer’s journey might be as follows:

i. Normal world

ii. Call to Adventure

iii. Refuses the call

iv. Meets a mentor who persuades

v. Starts the adventure.

4. There is a balance between writing for one’s own pleasure and writing for a market. Discuss
5. Discussed our thoughts on Phil’s book and the comments of his Reader.

6. Readings
1. Mike’s prize winning story, The Vicar’s Tale
2. Maxine’s article: Slugs for Amateur Gardeners

c. Chris Jarvis – extract from The Holmes Service

4. Margaret: Blue Wayne.

7. Exercise for November The Photograph – this was the title of a national competition recently – can you find an original take on it?
8. Suggestion for the next meeting: we might work in groups to produce 3 half hour plays based in the same place with a maximum of 4 characters. You can download a script format free at www.celtx.com note the spelling – NOT celtex. It’s a big file and takes a few minutes to download.

Newsletter

CWG Newsletter

Tuesday 7^th August 2007

Chair: Mike Sherratt, 34 Bexfield Close, Allesley Village, Coventry CV5 9BL (telephone 02476 – 405232. E-mail: michael.sherratt1@btopenworld.com

Secretary: Christine Rutherford 23 Frances Road Harbury Warks CV33 9JG

(tel 01926 613757 e-mail krismonsen@btopenworld.com)

1. Chair’s Notes – none as such.
2. Apologies Chris Jarvis
3. Correspondence/info/notes
1. publications from Central Library including Raw Edge. – need SAE and would like submissions
2. Writers course at Coventry University: BA in professional and creative writing.
3. Free courses available - look at Coventry University and Warwick local government websites. General feedback from courses has been very positive.
4. Achievements
1. Ann: usual Dogs Monthly, feature in Rescue and Homing, Collectors’ Gazette etc.
2. Ann’s shop is up and running and includes a photographer and prints flyers and adverts – gave us all a flyer.
5. Round table
1. Where do you find a source for a story? One conversation led to Schindler’s Ark.
2. Does a hero have to follow a stereotype?
3. Writers’ Group exists to encourage new writing.
4. Pam talked of the difficulty of balancing writing and reading.
5. Philip’s presentation. http://www.coventrywriters/group.org.uk is a blog not a website. Members can put work there and others can comment on it. Mike or Phil will invite you to be an author on the site. Once you are registered, you can put writing, images and comments on the site. Phil to continue this next time as it generated a discussion on who, exactly, would be able to access it. Is open access a good thing?
6. Readings
1. Chris read 1^st chapter of Though the Sun Goes Down.
2. Geoff: My Guardian Angel – small, odd man in a café.
3. Philip: monologue from his book – a besotted girl’s impassioned plea to her man.
4. John: First Impressions of an Emerging Writer.
5. Mike: The Pain and the Ecstasy – a conman conned.
6. Chris: monologue Thoughts on Being Me – an elderly lady who is seen by others as an inspiration.
7. Mike’s prize winning essay on Silas Marner.

7. Exercise for September

Write a piece, any title, illustrating how to build suspense. Approx 500 words.

8. Exercise for October.

Find a scene from real life which could be the beginning or the end of a story.