WRITE BY THE SEA IN FOLKESTONE
To provide a safe, inclusive and constructive environment for local writers to share and discuss their work.
Jo Bavington-Jones was born in 1967 in Dover, where her father owned the local newspaper. Jo has an Honours Degree in English and American Literature from the University of Kent at Canterbury. She has always wanted to be a writer.
Her books are available on Amazon here.
Ben Barton grew up on the Romney Marsh in Kent. His poems have been published widely in both the UK and USA. Nominated for the Canterbury Poet of the Year Award and the erbacce-prize, he works as a professional copy and travel writer.
Also a film artist, Ben’s film Stella Erratica was funded by the late David Bowie, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He lives in Folkestone with his husband and son, beside the beautiful North Downs.
Books available from Amazon here.
I have to stay that this was one of the best set up stalls at the event!
Author of Chick Lit, lover of chocolate (and doesn’t think it’s pure coincidence that the two sound similar!) Has a penchant for shoes, bags, clothes (the usual necessities), and socialising with friends, family and anyone else who gets dragged along.
Hopes you enjoy her books, get her humour, don’t object to her use of British spellings and keep in touch!
She’d love you to sign up to her newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/dnI9bv
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https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBeaStevens/
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And check out her website at https://www.beastevens.com/
We held our first meeting of the year in the new venue, THE HIDEAWAY, I would like to take this opportunity of thanking Matt & Leanne for their hospitality. Food and drink will be available at all meetings. A warm welcome to our new members.
I have closed the private Facebook group so we just have a page on Facebook, it was not being used for members writing and I am trying to keep things easy and simple. I will put everything on the website and Mark has very kindly offered to transfer it onto social media. Thank you so much, Mark.
Please go onto the website at folkestonewritebythesea.wordpress.com and scroll down until you get to this:
Then follow by putting in your email address. You will then get an email when I post something for the group. I have started to do the posts for the 33 authors that attended the book event in November so they will be on there, please do like and share them for the authors.
The stories from the Living advent will go in our GHOSTLY ANTHOLOGY that I plan to have done by Halloween so we can sell it then. Members can submit stories or poems in this theme up to about 3,000 words. The cost will be £5 for each piece of work entered. We can proofread each others that you can organise yourself as to who you would like to ask as some like myself are not very good at that. We will also need a ghostly Folkestone photo for the cover. For the artists amongst you, it would be nice to have some illustrations between the work. I will bring in the last 4 anthology books for everyone to have a look at as to the setup. I will ask HG Wells society if he could come and advise us about how he does their books.
We will be drawing up a funding proposal for the anthology and advertising stands, Debby has kindly offered to help with that. We will ask local such as the council and Roger De Hann for funds.
We are having a CRIME PANAL DAY on a Saturday during September, details to follow about that.
Every Thursday will be a WRITING DAY at THE HIDEAWAY from 9 am until 3 pm This is for you to write or get advice from other members. I will try to be there during the mornings but then from 1 pm until 2.30 pm I will be doing the STORYTIME at THE WELLBEING CENTRE by Sainsbury’s, if you would like to come along to listen or read or to help and maybe take a session then please do let me know.
The children’s writing competition put on by Pelham House has been cancelled as there were only 6 entries. I have suggested to them that maybe they should just involve groups such as brownies, cadets etc as schools have such a tight curriculum now it is hard to fit extra things in. Also if they want to do workshops then the group organisers can take these as they have already got their police checks. So we may be asked next year just to judge, we will have to wait and see.
There is now a BOOK SWAP on the side in THE HIDEAWAY so please all make use of that, I started it off with a few of Jane Wenham-Jones books and Dave Stone put his book in there.
There won’t be a newsletter anymore just these posts with all the news. I will also do one for any up-coming competitions that look appropriate for us and low cost.
I have bought an A-frame notice board for outside THE HIDEAWAY I have to re-paint it then it can have a poster of our picture and dates of meetings written on it. Leanne has kindly offered to do the writing on the board.
Our charity last year was MIND we raised £31 for them and I have given it to them. They will be putting photos and info about our group on their website. They will also be bringing it up at the next meeting about our group and them getting involved in it by way of sending people who would like to write for their mental health.
I will be sending a write-up to all the small free booklets like the Folkestone town one letting them know our dates and plans so hopefully, we will get another free inclusion as they appear to be the best for advertising.
This year appears to be the ’60 years’ old, Matthew and Debby have said they are having a garden party on the 20th June for members and families. It will be bring a plate then a barbeque in the evening, they have a marquee also will look into some live music. For more information please have a chat to Matthew or Debby.
Please could everyone take a couple of posters and put out as then we are spreading the word about our group. I am eager for people to join in who are housebound as they can still share their work and read our posts.
I will be chatting on ACADAMY FM at just after the news at 11 am on the first Wednesday of every month with Kay. Acadamy fm
THE BEACON has asked me to advise and help them put on an event similar to the November one. Thank you, Paul, for offering to come with me and be note-taker, it does all sound like a brilliant idea. This will be on a far bigger scale, plus including artists and wellbeing practitioners as well as us authors and a bar with food. I am setting up meetings for this week to get a rough idea of interest, if you would like to have a table for the first event in April then please let me know. I am thinking we could have a block of tables together for our group. There is much to organise but I should have everything planned by our next group meeting. The Beacon will do the main advertising but we can all share on our pages over social media. I will do another post about all this hopefully next weekend if all meetings have gone ahead.
Members read from their books or stories they had written, it is nice to hear what we are each up to.
Hannah has suggested that she records the author events and put them on our website, I think that is another good idea, especially for people that can’t get to our meetings.
TASK – We picked four words: COFFEE MAGAZINE ROYAL MANIC Your task is to make something from these words and bring it along to the next group meeting on the 6th February at 6.30 to share if you would like to, no pressure from us.
See you all on the 23rd of January at 6.30 for our author event where I will be chatting to two first time authors about the roads they travelled to get their books published. I am sure this will be a really interesting and well-attended event. We all want to know how to get published.
Thank you all so much for attending, have a great writing week.
Drew Wagar was born in Canada in 1970, but has lived in the UK since 1972. He was educated at the university of Brighton where he studied Computer Science. Drew published his first novel, ‘Torn’, in 2011 and followed this up with a short story in the anthology ‘Fusion’ in 2012. Drew has written one of the official novels set in the universe of Elite: Dangerous by Frontier Developments. This book, ‘Elite:Reclamation’ , is now on Amazon worldwide. EMANATION is the first book in Drew’s upcoming ‘Shadeward Saga’, hardback editions will be available from October 2015. www.drewwagar.com
Drew is on his tenth novel at the moment with them all available on Amazon here.
Born in 1989 Melissa Bateman is a book lover and baking enthusiast. Born in rural Kent in the late 1980’s, her childhood playground was her grandparents’ farm where she shared adventures with her sister and her favourite farm cat, Tink.
Melissa began writing Daughter of Ibany in the summer of 2013, and worked on it steadily over the next three years.
Among her favourite authors are J.K Rowling, Suzanne Collins and Phillipa Gregory. Her hobbies include cinema trips, baking, seeing stand up comedy shows and watching historical and natural world documentaries, especially David Attenborough.
Her love of writing was discovered at school on short story assignments and also history projects. She has long had a love for visiting historical houses and castles to see the homes of her favourite historical figures.
She is a food lover with a sweet tooth who loves an excuse to go out for dinner.
This is available on Amazon here.
Christopher Law lives in the South East of England where he’s been writing about monsters since childhood. He is the author of Chaos Tale and Chaos Tales II: Hell TV and has appeared in a number of anthologies, including regular slots in the Burdizzo charity range. For more info and free stories go to evilscribbles.wordpress.com or facebook.com/evilscribbles
Mike Shanahan is a freelance writer with a doctorate in rainforest ecology. He has lived in a national park in Borneo, bred endangered penguins, investigated illegal bear farms, produced award-winning journalism and spent several weeks of his life at the annual United Nations climate change negotiations. He is interested in what people think about nature and our place in it. His writing includes work published by The Economist, Nature, The Ecologist and Ensia, and chapters of Dry: Life without Water (Harvard University Press); Climate Change and the Media (Peter Lang Publishing) and Culture and Climate Change: Narratives (Shed). He is the illustrator of Extraordinary Animals (Greenwood Publishing Group) and maintains a blog called Under the Banyan.
His book Ladders to heaven is available on Amazon here.
Carol is not only a singing star from the 60’s but also a very good writer and is such a knowledgable lady about so many things. She was our musical director for our door at the living advent calendar plus we had her choir there for a couple of carols.
This book is available on Amazon here.
What a busy time the writing group have had the last few weeks, first we had the book event and meeting all those brilliant authors, I will be doing blog posts about each of them next week.
The Chambers hosted a fundraising Christmas market to raise funds for the homeless, another great event last Sunday. Jodie and I bought a pack of the wax covers and food wrap which are made from cotton and wax. Feels hard but softens so you can wrap it around food, such as lime and lemons for your Christmas drinks.
We then popped over to the wellbeing centre as they had some stalls where people were selling things they had made. Jodie got a cute little wreath to put around a candle.
We also had our Living Advent calendar door number ten to open, what an absolutely brilliant evening. The five ghost stories about prominent places in Folkestone went down so well and everybody remembered their lines. We then had a Christmas buffet for members and family so that was a great evening.
We are finished now for this year but will be back on the eighth of January when I will be on the radio then the next day we have the first group meeting at The Hideaway at 6.30.
Have a super Christmas and Happy New Year
