Ashby Writers

Subtitle


Next Meeting:

26 November 2019

Shreya Sen Handley

Short story writer and librettist


The Society's Christmas dinner is pencilled in for 10 December 2019 at the Tap House pending approval by members.


Look out for David Bell's new book:

Reds, Rebels and Radicals


Our Thanks to our last speaker:

Imogen Church






Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing

  1. Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not create a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long.

  2. Avoid prologues.

  3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.

  4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin.

  5. Keep your exclamation marks under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

  6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

  7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

  8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants, what do the "American and the girl with him" look like? "She had taken off her hat and put it on the table." That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

  9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

  10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.


Elmore Leonard had an additional rule that he regarded as the most important, because it encapsulates all of the other rules:


If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.


This is the website for Ashby Writers' Club in which Writers from the area of Ashby de la Zouch discuss their writing, hold writing competitions and entertain guest speakers.


Ashby Writers’ Committee


Chair: Mike Arblaster

Vice-chair: Kate Mallinder

Secretary: Diane Buxton

Treasurer: Samantha Ridgway

Assistant Treasurer: Helen Bralesford

Programme secretary: David Bell


Programme 2019


8th Jan manuscript meeting – members’ own work


22nd Jan Wendy Freer “A Step on the Ladder” (and other films)


12th Feb comp: poem up to 30 lines, on a theme of “Folly”


26th Feb Annual General Meeting


12th Mar manuscript meeting – members’ own work


26th Mar speaker:
Llynda Baugh: Her books. Ways of telling a story.

Llynda is a mosaic artist, as well as an author.


9th Apr manuscript meeting – members’ own work


23rd Apr speaker: Ann Featherston: “Storm in a Teacup.” The Picadilly Circus waitress’s

strike of 1908


14th May manuscript meeting – members’ own work


28th May speaker: Erin Green (aka Bernadette O’Dwyer). Writer of “women’s fiction.”

(what was once called romantic fiction, but Headline have renamed it).


11th June manuscript meeting – members’ own work


25th June comp: prose on the theme of Shyness. (300words (=/- 10, not including title).


(9th July) manuscript meeting – members’ own work


23rd July speaker: Roz Watkins: Derbyshire crime writer


13th Aug manuscript meeting – members’ own work


27th Aug speaker: Ann Evans: novelist. Her 31 books include crime thrillers, romance,

YA, books for reluctant readers, children. She is an ex-journalist (Coventry

Telegraph).


9th October: 500 word autobiographies of members.


23rd October manuscript meeting - members' own work


12th Nov manuscript meeting – members’ own work


26th Nov speaker: Shreya Sen Handley. You may remember her autobiographical

Memoirs of my Body. Her short story collection Strange Stories is just out

from HarperCollins. She has also become a librettist for the Welsh National

Opera!


10th Dec meal - possibly at the Tap House, the same venue as last year, if members are

happy with it.


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Meetings second and fourth Tuesday of each month, unless otherwise specified 7.30pm-9.30pm at Congregational Church, Kilwardby St, Ashby LE65 2FQ.

See 'Location'  tab in menu for how to find us.


Membership £10 per annum

Visitors are welcome at a nominal fee of £4 per speaker meeting, £3 per comp/manuscript meeting (includes coffee or tea)