WRITE BY THE SEA IN FOLKESTONE
To provide a safe, inclusive and constructive environment for local writers to share and discuss their work.
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.
The Hideaway – Thursday 30th July 2020
After welcoming everyone, discussing the social distancing and leaving all names plus numbers as per the recommendations from the government, then the drinks were bought with some eating as well, we then got underway. It was great to see you all after such a long time.
It was a good turnout for our first meeting since this awful pandemic started with twelve of us meeting and apologies from Debby, Matthew, Carol, Mary and John.
Tony decided that the Zoom would not work as needed someone to ‘man’ it. Facebook messenger was suggested but think that would have the same problem. Mark suggested that we film it and then put it on the website. I will talk to Hannah as she may have a suggestion.
Debby asked me to mention the Hythe Festival 25th to 27th September, Facebook page here. They are thinking a book marquee for workshops, readings and selling your books. I will update when I hear more but keep the dates free if you can.
Author events – These may be people we know or our own members giving a talk. I will chat to Charlie Gallagher as he could do a local talk. Also, our member Paul who writes children’s books offered to do one, I thought this would be good as not had a children’s author visit us. I had Andy Markwell booked to do a talk about photography for book covers in November so hopefully, that will still go ahead.
Roll-up banner – Tony met up with Roger to ask about the progress so it is still in hand and going ahead, we must remind him in a couple of weeks and see how it is progressing.
Our Anthology – Andy did some calculations so we are looking at the 5 advent calender stories, which may need a polish off by the writers. Then another 15 stories of about 1,500 to 5,000, I am thinking 2,000 is an average word count. It would be good to have a couple of poems and some illustrations or photos to mix it all up. Should we have a children’s section at the back with a story and poem in there for our young readers? The theme has always been ghostly set in Folkestone but you can mix that up into romance, comedy or anything, as you are all great writers. I can ask Andy Markwell to assist us in the cover photo. We will aim for Halloween, Christmas or Easter lol
Sharing of work – It was great to hear what everyone has been up to on their writing journeys and listening to the poems and stories we all shared.
The Wellbeing Centre – I have had to stop the storytime sessions here but if any of you would like to do something similar then please contact Sheree on Facebook messenger.
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) – This will be for the month of November, I think we should all try to be involved with this, more so if we do have another lockdown as we can make a messenger group or WhatsApp group to keep everyone updated about what and how much they have written. We can support and encourage each other.
Future meetings
Meetings held at The Hideaway, 16 Bouverie Rd West,
Folkestone CT20 2SZ at 6.30 pm
3rd September – Ghostly writing to share and brainstorm
8th October – Group meeting plus ghostly writing & sharing work
12th November – Group meeting & sharing work
19th November – Andy Markwell, photography for book covers
10th December – Group meeting & Christmas meal/buffet
7th January – Group meeting
Contact: Karen 07967532899 or email: karensworld.writer.co.uk
See you all on the 3rd September at 6.30pm New members always welcome
I have attached a poster of dates so if any of you can share that it would be good as I am not putting out posters in town myself.
https://folkestonewritebythesea.wordpress.com
Mark Brophy lives alongside the Royal Military Canal near Hythe in Kent. His first book, “The Prince’s Parade” is set in the area where he now lives, a unique wild area on the coast. The book tells the story of Hana, a young girl who moves to the area from London. She falls in love with her new environment and finds excitement but also solace in nature. When she hears that a housing development is planned nearby, Hana enlists the help of some rather unusual friends to stop it.
I took the cheque into MIND today, they were really pleased with the amount we had raised for them. They will be putting it on their website so we will get a bit more publicity from them. We look forward to more collaberations with them in the future.
We have had lots of interest in tonight’s event so I think it will be very popular. If you are thinking of publishing then please do pop along. I will be talking to two first time authors who took very different roads to publishing their first book.
I will be talking to them both on the sofa, trying to find out all the details, then I will open it up for questions from the audiance.
As usual this is a free event for anyone to pop along too, all we ask is that you buy a drink from the bar to support the venue.
See you tonight
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
And/or follow her on:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBeaStevens/
https://www.instagram.com/authorbeastevens/
And check out her website at https://www.beastevens.com/
ACADEMY FM 105.9
During the build-up to the author event last week I took two authors into Academy FM to have a chat with Kay.
Kate Abley has written her first book called Changing the subject, which she very kindly gave me a copy of so it is on my list to read. Then from Ashford, we have Drew Wagar who is on his ninth book! You can read more about each author under the event tab.
Very good show so I will be putting up on here later in the week, I was the only one that messed up as usual.
I loved the signs that Rosie did from The Chambers and they certainly pulled in the crowds.
I will be doing a post about each author that attended the event over the next month if it makes you wish you had been there then make sure you put it in your diaries for next year. I had no thoughts about doing this again but I have been asked by everybody who came also Chris and Liz from The Chambers. It was an excellent venue with more authors popping up around each corner downstairs. So it looks like I will be hosting another ‘Meet the author’ event in 2020!
I had many thank you’s and I would like to share a selection with you, as without the authors I could not have accomplished this. At least next year I know all what to do and what worked well, maybe I will practise the poster making on Canva a bit more! lol
Thank you to everyone who came to the event, see you next year.
This is going to be a super event as we now have over twenty authors attending on Thursday afternoon the 21st November 2pm until 6 pm. This is a completely free event, you will also be given a raffle ticket when entering then during the afternoon there will be spot prizes awarded.
I plan on getting to Chambers about 12 and having some lunch there to support the venue so please join me as soon as you can. The restaurant is open until 2pm then afterwards the coffee shop upstairs will still be open so snacks can be got from there. After lunch, we will start getting set up for all the authors.
There will be a poster coming soon with all the authors on it.
This was one of our author talks we held last week, they are fast becoming a well-known event in Folkestone. Mark Stay is a fantasy writer with a background in publishing so we all picked his brains with loads of questions. I really think we could have carried on all night.
We had new people turning up again so the word is getting around about our new group. I have lots lined up for next year and will be giving you the dates of the events at our group meeting.
I would like to take this opportunity of thanking Mark for coming and giving a brilliant, insightful talk.
