Events

OUR FIRST BOOK LAUNCH

What a fantastic day we all had on Saturday at The New Folkestone Bookshop for our very first book launch, it was our third anthology but we had never celebrated one before due to being a new group and then covid. So many people came to support us and listen to the readings we did during the afternoon. The finger buffet was a success, especially the personalised cupcakes and biscuits.

We had 28 people submit stories for this anthology so it was a significant task for Matthew and Debby to do all the editing etc but we have to agree the book is bigger with a variety of stories and poems.

Write by the Sea has now produced three anthologies, Ghosts by the Sea, Doorways to the Sea and Journeys by the Sea.

All our books are available at the bookshop on Tontine Street and also on Amazon here.

A fun afternoon for the children as well.

A massive thank you to everyone for making this book a success.

Our next event is on the 25th May at Anna’s, all about script writing and dialogue. Everyone is welcome to our free events we just like you to buy something to eat or drink so we support the establishment.

Events, News

ANTHOLOGY NEWS

We have set some dates towards our third anthology publication.

The cover reveal will be on the 27th of April 2023

The book launch will be at The New Bookshop on Tontine Street on Saturday 13th May between 2 & 6 pm. There will be some readings from the book and your opportunity to meet the authors and of course, buy the book also the best bit is there will be prosecco and nibbles.

Hope to see you all there.

members

JANA CHATTERS

Born in what is now the Czech Republic, I began to attend school in 1943, during the Second World War. I lived with my parents in Parish Zvoleneves near Prague. This meant that my education was,  from the beginning very challenging. Nobody felt safe. Our childhood was not carefree. As soon as I started to learn to write, I found everything was wrong; we were having lessons in German with a man wearing an Army uniform, who only spoke his own language – and unnecessarily loudly too. 

Once the War was over, there was to be a New Life with freedom. That was what everyone was saying, anyway, but this proved to be just an illusion and the Russian regime proved to be a variation on German hegemony.

I continued with dual languages and realised that I preferred literary subjects to Maths and Physics. I was influenced by nature, and started writing poetry and short stories, for which I won praise from my teacher. It almost seemed incongruous then that my next step was a secondary school specialising in Accountancy, taking me up to the A-level stage. There really wasn’t much choice. My heart wasn’t in that profession, and so, some years later, whilst on maternity leave, I studied for my Institute of Teachers qualifications from home. This was decidedly more “my cup of tea.” I could pursue my interests in art, reading and nature at last. 

The next “game-changer” in my life came after the Velvet Revolution, which took place in the Czech Republic in 1989. My daughters were already grown up and had left home. When my husband died unexpectedly and suddenly, I found myself alone. The borders of our country were open and my dream of seeing other countries and more nature was becoming a reality. I was amazed at the ease with which tourists were now passing through the Iron Curtain. I passed the course to become a Tourist Guide. This enabled me to learn more about history and geography, to write itineraries for coach parties and to work with travel agencies, paving the way for my next game-changing episode and my first trip to the United Kingdom. 

Within the space of a few years, I had met my next husband, got married and become a British citizen. I carried on with my second profession, as a teaching assistant in a primary school in Folkestone. I had lived through such upheavals and this was such an emotional period of my life that I felt compelled to write about it. And so, my first book, Goodbye Comrades, was born in 2008, followed by another four, in which I describe the life stories of Eastern Europeans coming to the UK.

News

OUR BOOK IS PUBLISHED!

It is with great happiness that I can tell you that our first book called GHOSTS BY THE SEA is available now on Amazon here.  I would like to take this opportunity of thanking everyone from the group for their support and help in making this happen for us all.

Many of our members have contributed to this book in different ways so it really is a combined effort from everyone. All the stories are set in Folkestone in many iconic buildings, you can even follow a map around the different places as you read about them.

I will be on Academy fm tomorrow at 11 o’clock you can listen here.  We will be running a competition so listen in and you might win a copy of the book.

You can also buy copies from The Hideaway when they open, which hopefully will be the 17th December if we leave tier 3.  Other places selling the books will be listed on our social media pages when they receive the books for sale.  Please support the many writers that have given their time to write such magnificent stories about our town.

Let us hope that we will be able to meet up again in the New Year, Merry Christmas everyone.

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DEADLINE!

I hope you are all getting on ok with your ghostly stories as the deadline is looming up very quickly.

15th NOVEMBER 2020

The setting has to be in Folkestone and can be any genre as long at it has a ghostly touch of some sort. This will be the first anthology from Write By The Sea with many members contributing in some way, either by a story, poem, prowse, illustration, photograph or even a script.