Posting this at the end of March 2025, there are 15 months to catch up with since our last Successes post. Time flies. As we did in 2023, post-Covid, we put on a number of member-led workshops, all of which proved to be entertaining and very helpful to members. We are privileged as an organisation to have so much in-house talent and expertise to draw upon. Huge thanks to the following leaders involved.

March 2nd: USING SCRIVENER – Led by Selso Xisto
Nov 9th: HISTORICAL FICTION: FACTS AND FANTASY – Led by Sarah Dodd
Jan 11th: THE BEWILDERED WRITER’S GUIDE TO WORLDBUILDING – Led by Luc Biyard

Undoubtedly, the major success to report is the publication of Sarah Dodd’s The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, under her writing name of Sarah Brooks. At one point it was No.9 on the Sunday Times Bestsellers List for Hardback Fiction and one place ahead of Stephen King! Sarah’s novel has garnered some wonderful reviews. For newer members and anyone coming across this by chance, this one from the Guardian will give you a flavour.

Also, with the release of his latest novel, The Fairfax Redemption, Chris Shevlin has now topped lifetime sales of 100,000 on the Amazon platform. It’s a huge achievement and an inspiration for us all in that you don’t necessarily have to go down the traditional publishing route to achieve success—although it certainly helps to be as talented as Chris.

It took a bit of prising from Chris to discover that he was on the very short longlist for the Bath Novel Award for 2024, one of the most prestigious novel competitions around.

Quite a few of us in the Circle are plugging away at our unpublished novels, writing, editing, honing drafts, generally putting in the hard yards, any kind of success feeling like only a distant possibility. It’s lovely to be able to report then that three members have recently been recognised in separate novel competitions. Panni Loh is currently longlisted in a major one. Gemma Irving Lees was shortlisted for Picasso Among the Pigeons in the Farnham Literary Festival’s First Five Pages Competition. And Bob Hamilton was shortlisted for The Strange Talent of Madeleine Mallarkey in Retreat West’s Opening Chapter Competition.

On to short stories and it feels like it’s becoming harder and harder to get a piece published and out there into the world. That said, Stephanie Soper has had no less than seven short stories published in the Sayings of Life anthology by Spilt Ink. Panni Loh has had Chickens, Wolves and Lightning published in the Nightmare with a Twist anthology by Barrio Blues Press, as well as a flash fiction, Winter Solstice, published on Paragraph Planet. Mari Phillips has had three flash pieces published on Cafe Lit—love you lots on 27 March, Number thirty-five on 30 April, and A Shoe Story on 20 August. Mari also had Obituary published on Paragraph Planet.

Members have had a couple of articles published in the year. Graeme Hall had a piece published in The Author—the house magazine of the Society of Authors—on Ageism in Publishing. Stepanie Soper had a half-page spread commissioned by the Phuket News, on how to be a writer. Also, Emma Storr continues to get published on The London Grip with a number of poetry reviews.

Moving on, then, to poetry, Emma was placed 2nd with On Seaham Beach in this year’s Molecules Unlimited Poetry Competition, judged by no less than Imtiaz Dharker. This was a poem previously offered for critique at a Circle meeting and tweaked accordingly. Emma also had three children’s poems published in the Dirigible Balloon, accompanied by some of Su Ryder‘s artwork. Richard Wilcocks had his ekphrastic poem, Newport Tip—inspired by a photo of Tish Murtha’s—published in The Fig Tree Webzine.

Finally, no less than six members had poems published in Chapel FM’s 2024 collection with the theme of Recovery—Ann Clarke with Sweetest Hangover, Ben Grunwell with A Fallen Writer’s Philosophy, Gail Mosley with Missing on the Remarkables, Jaspreet Mander with Worlds and Wardrobes, Marg Greenwood with Buoys will be Buoys, and Terry Buchan with Charity Shop.