Authors Electric

For quite a few years now I've been running writing workshops and classes for adult who are just starting out on their writing careers. Almost two years ago, I started a new six week course called Focus on Fiction with eight or nine people on the course. All went well – in fact it went so well, that at the end of those six weeks, no one wanted to say goodbye. Friendships had been forged and Monday night's class was something they enjoyed. They asked if I'd keep running the classes and so I did. A six week course turning into a 20 month course! It's just brilliant to see novice writers coming on in leaps and bounds, and I'm so proud of my bunch, who are now seeing the fruits of their labours, with various writing successes. Over that time a few people have dropped out and others have joined, so it's always fresh and we never run out of things to write about – nor topics to teach. We've now put together two anthologies of our w...

It's been a busy few weeks with the emphasis being on anthologies and short stories.  Belonging to the Coventry Writers Group and running my own creative writing class, Focus on Fiction , which meets every Monday evening, both groups have put together anthologies of short stories and both have been launched this week. I'm excited about both, but I have to admit that I'm really excited about the Focus on Fiction anthology, Winter Tales as the majority of my eight students have never seen their work in print. And their enthusiasm in getting this book together has been fantastic. I got to know this group of novice writers at the beginning of the year when I started running a new creative writing course. The course was supposed to last just six weeks, but something clicked and my band of eight didn't want the course to end, and so it's continued throughout the year.  A couple of months ago I set them an exercise to write a wintery/Christmas short...