First, Rita Morrison was short-listed for the H.E.Bates Short Story Writing Competition. Although not going on to win a prize, this should be considered a great success. Her story would have been up against stiff competition.

Following her recent success, Su Ryder has been able to announce another poem being accepted for an anthology to be published later this year.

Also, David Cundall and Sandy Hogarth-Scott were both long-listed in the Cinnamon Literary Awards for novels. 

And Emma Storr continues to set a great example by getting lots of things out there, as well having her own recent poetry collection pick up a number of good reviews. She had two poems from Heart Murmur chosen for publication in the print magazine Raceme, which also published a couple of reviews, one on Lydia Kennaway’s pamphlet A History of Walking from HappenStance Press and another on Katrina Naomi’s pamphlet Typhoon Etiquette from Verve Poetry Press. Heart Murmur was also favourably reviewed in Raceme by Shirley Wright. Emma received another positive and interesting review from Thomas Ovans in London Grip. You can read that one here.

Finally, the success of the latest workshop needs to be credited, with thanks to the dedicated work of Caroline Humes who organised this over-subscribed event. From Caroline herself …

On 18 January 2020, Leeds Writers Circle was fortunate to welcome Deborah McAndrew as our guest leader for a Scriptwriting workshop. Deborah is an award-winning playwright, creative director and actor, and is the Chancellor of Leeds Trinity University.

Her workshop was titled ‘All the Parts’. It examined the many viewpoints the dramatist must envisage when writing for the theatre, and explored how both poetic and practical demands can inspire creativity and develop craft.

Deborah gave many nuggets of useful information. She talked about the role of the playwright and how theatre is about transformation. You have to take the audience on a journey, and the main character or their circumstances should undergo a definite change. 

Of the exercises we did, my favourite was one in which we reflected on a narrative piece we’d seen or read recently, and mapped out our reader/audience journey in terms of the audience experience that we had. By identifying the moments where we felt riveted/happy/scared for example, we can analyse how the writer created those moments and replicate the techniques in our own work.

Leeds Writers Circle would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Deborah McAndrew for such a successful event.