July Meeting

Bit late posting this. Sorry.

This month's meeting - Monday 7th July. Old Queen's Head, upstairs, 7:30 pm.

Second June Meeting

Monday 16 June. Old Queen's Head, upstairs room, 7:30 pm onwards.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is Monday May 19th at the usual place and time: Old Queen's Head, seven o'clock onwards. Let's hope more turn up than to the last meeting.

A Useful Article on Writing

This piece here in the Austin Chronicle makes some good points about creative writing. But like the writer himself says, it should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, I think he's unnecessarily harsh on workshops:

Be careful of "workshop" classes in which you present your writing for the criticism of classmates and the teacher. Your classmates don't know any more than you; their comments will be mere opinions, backed by scant knowledge and experience – but they have the power to hurt you. You want your writing to be approved, of course; when it's not approved, that's painful. But if you shape your writing to the opinions of the inexperienced and unknowledgeable, you'll set yourself back years.

The above is probably far more true of online writing workshops than it is face-to-face groups. The size of online workshops, the drive-by critique nature of many of them, and the lack of clues in online dialogue make it difficult to assess the knowledge and experience of commenters. That's not so true of groups that meet in person.

Meeting Calendar

The room (upstairs, Old Queen's Head) has been booked for the following nights:

Monday March 17
Monday May 5
Monday May 19
Monday June 2
Monday June 16
Monday July 7
Monday August 4

If it looks a bit random, that's because they were the only free nights we could get.

BSFA 50th Anniversary Short Story Competition

For writers from the UK & Ireland.

FIRST PRIZE £500

To celebrate 50 years of the BSFA's promotion of British science fiction, we are please to announce our 50th Anniversary Short Story Competition.

The competition is open to any writer resident in the UK or Ireland. The maximum length of stories is 8000 words. The stories must be science fiction, but we're willing to take a broad definition of what that means. All entries must be accompanied by a £10 entry fee.

The winner will receive a cash prize of £500, the short listed runners up will receive £50, and the winning and short listed entries will be published in a special issue of FOCUS the BSFA's magazine for writers. The closing date for entries is midnight on Friday 5th September 2008 - the winner will be announced at Novacon 38, 14th - 16th November 2008.

Judges include Stephen Baxter & Alistair Reynolds.

February Meeting

As before - upstairs room, Old Queen's Head, Pond Hill. Seven o'clock onwards. The date is Monday 18 February.