Hello, good day, and welcome, to you all my friends and also those who know me better than that.
I learned an odd fact about Boris Johnson the other day. Apparently, in Oxford Uni he was not only a fun guy in the debating circle and the Bullingdon Club, but was also a mean darts player. It appears that no matter his sobriety or lack thereof he could always hit the dead centre of the board with ease. Yes, he was the greatest bulls-hitter to ever come out of Oxford. Now there’s not many people know that.
But the sun is shining once more and there is sunshine in my heart for all the joy we are spreading. First of all, our readings event at Wellfield Bookshop was a pretty good success; with most of our people there actually buying books so the shop did very well indeed. On top of that, we had thirteen readers and some Q&As. Even some members of the public came in and were impressed. Our next readings event is Saturday July 1st at Cathays library, 2:00 until 3:30. Catch it on EventBrite for tickets which are free. Tell your friends.
Next week we are on ZOOM, with the wonderful Big Jeff in the chair. Here is the link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83726921181?pwd=TURTSHRmcHMwNXBXdnJVdVFMekQydz09
And don’t forget to pay your membership and weekly fees.
Right now the annual is £4 up until the Summer break, and the weeklies, for ZOOM and/or YMCA, are £3 each. New attenders get their first two sessions free of charge. If you choose to pay by bank transfer, please include your name in the empty identification box. Our bank details are:
Account number 39655934
Sort code 23-05-80
Account name CARDIFF WRITERS’ CIRCLE (all capitals)
This week we were at the YMCA with the fabulous Gail Williams adjudicating our short story competition. Gail is a published author of six crime fiction novels, five steam-punk novels, and a (crime-centric) short story collection. (She may have been too shy to tell me of any and all of the others.) https://gailbwilliams.co.uk/ GW is also a leading light in Gwyl Cymru – Crime Festival Wales – which does not mean she knows a lot of burglars, but that she is part of the team that runs the Welsh crime fiction festival. This year, for the first time, it was a physical festival, held in Aberystwyth, and it was brilliant. https://www.gwyl.cymru/en/about/
Anyway, GW was able to shine some of that brilliance on our competition, and boy was it illuminating. We had 17 present, including two first-timers, and our esteemed adjudicator. She made some observations and comments that any and everyone should follow/ensure.
- Be wary of formatting issues when swapping between MACs and PCs.
- Your story arc should be logical and satisfying.
- Make sure your story doesn’t have time/age/maths issues.
- Set expectations and stick to them.
- Be very careful of ‘over-egging the pudding’ by using foreign languages or local dialects, as someone who knows that language/dialect may point out your errors.
- If someone is grieving then for whom?
- Grammar needs to not only be correct (speech potentially excluded) but should flow.
There were comments regarding every entry but the overall standard was very high. The two runners-up were Sara with Gone (possibly really called something else) and Nathan Harrison, a new member who has paid his membership but not actually turned up for a session yet, with That Morning at Terminal Two. We await to meet the talented young gentleman. But the winner, and star of the evening, was Ian with Teeth (aged seven). All agreed a deserved winner (except for those who lost).
Well done everyone and thank you Gail.
In other news:
One of our new members asked us to mention the Moon Club on Womanby St in the city centre, which has open mic nights and comedy events.
https://www.themooncardiff.com/events
While the other told us of The Welsh Crime Diamonds, free on EventBrite, 24th of this month.
And here’s a course about children’s picture books
See you in two weeks at the YMCA. Jeff will see you all on ZOOM next week.
Byeeeeeeee
P.
