Keep checking for news and upcoming speakers.
Next Meeting: 8th September 2010
N.B.Summer Break: We shall not be meeting in August. Meetings will resume again as usual in September. Don't forget the Marsh Ink Open Day on 14th August - contact Bridget or John for details.
9th June.
The award-winning lifestyle journalist and author Karena Callen gave an informative and entertaining talk on her career in journalism. Now working freelance, writing articles for a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines, she set Marsh Ink some challenging homework afterwards:
Members were invited to write a magazine-style article of between 500-750 words on the subject of 'Fragrance'. Karena also kindly offered to visit us again at a later date to offer an appraisal of our results.
28th April.
Our Honorary President, Pamela Oldfield came to the meeting to give the results of our short story writing competition. This was:
A short story on one of the following:
sombre, chilling, spooky, mysterious, otherworldly, supernatural or simply inexplicable.
The results were as follows:
1st. Gaynor Cobb " Crossing Over"
2nd. Barbara Turner.
3rd. John Allen.
The stories will be published on the website. Look out for them in our Competitions section.
24th March.
Members exercised their critical faculties on a sample short story from an anthology. Members' own work was then examined,with some helpful advice given.
10th March
The homework for this meeting was based a wrong number telephone call, the conversation and the consequences of the call. There were a number of different and often amusing pieces of work. Altogether, a very entertaining meeting.
24th March 2010.
Members who receive the church newsletter " Romney Coast and Country News" please note that the entry for Marsh Ink for 24th March is not correct!! We meet as normal at the Assembly Rooms and we will not bring local artefacts along! The Marsh Ink entry has been confused with the History Society!!!!
Perhaps that's an idea for a story.... confusing information and its consequences!
24th February 2010.
Members looked at writing they have been working on.
10th February 2010.
This meeting was cancelled because of the snow. Please see details for the 24th February.
20th January 2010
This was a workshop run by Gill Southgate. Everyone found Gill's session very enjoyable and instructive. She has made a number of suggestions for similar exercises to be carried out at future meetings which we all felt would be very useful.
The subject was Writing Exercises, with the focus on three:
Pruning adjectives and adverbs in prose.
Personifying objects for poetry writing
Editing (a piece will be given out for pairs of people to share, and edit).
We hope to arrange another workshop with Gill next year and this is highly recommended to all members.
16th December Meeting
Our December get together included a chance to share some Christmas food and drink.
Homework was to write a Christmas monologue or to bring along something related to Christmas; written by members or someone else.
Those present were treated to some excellent festive writing, including Marion's parody of "The Night Before Christmas" and Jacqui's political satire of " The White House Christmas Party".
Meeting Wednesday 18th November 2009.
Our Honorary President Pamela Oldfield conducted a workshop at this meeting.Her subject was "Dialogue."
Members had an interesting and enjoyable evening with Pamela as always. Having given some tips expaining how to develop dialogue writing, Pamela asked everyone to write a short telephone conversation. The conversations were entertaining as there was a good variety of subjects.
Also at the meeting, members discussed the recent Children's Poetry Competition. Winning entries were read aout and it was agreed that the standard was high. Winners will be contacted and arrangements made for a prize giving.
2nd December Meeting.
Gaynor reported back on the ACW meeting and writers' day that she attended in London in October. This looked at crime writing with Veronica Heley and Lesley Horton. There was also an interesting workshop with Dorothy Stewart whose subject was " Publish Every Article You Write".
Visit Of Paul Bright.
Paul came to the meeting on 21st October 2009, to talk to us about his children's picture books and poetry. He is a past member of Marsh Ink and the members were very pleased to see him again. Everyone listened, enthralled as he shared his stories and told us about his journey to publication.
Paul explained how picture books were created and shared useful tips about approaching publishers and agents. It was a very enjoyable evening. Marsh Ink wish Paul well with his writing. We will be looking out for titles by Paul Bright in Little Tiger Press.
16th December Meeting.
A monologue on a Christmas theme. This can be a parody of an existing monologue or something new.
For a flavour of past events, see:
http://www.dymchurchonline.com/events/event_result.php?month=5