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The Pier Group
When their creative writing evening class ended, subscriber
Patricia Golledge and her classmates found it very hard
to keep motivated and continue writing, until they decided
to form their own writers’ group.
From the Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare area in south-west
England – although Patricia has now moved to Clackmannanshire,
Scotland – the group settled on the name the Pier
Group, and decided that the best way to keep inspiration
high was to have a goal to aim for, the publication of an
anthology.
‘We decided to do a theme and took a date out of thin air
– it just happened to be 6 June,’ says Patricia. ‘The
stories in that are quite a mix. We made a conscious effort
not to go for the obvious D-Day line.
‘It was well-received locally, selling out in
some bookshops, and we managed to cover our costs.’ A local
newspaper reviewer said the collection, ‘Not only attains
high literary standards in use of language and structure,
but is also an excellent read’.
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Members of the Pier Group. Front: Tricia Golledge,
Rosemarie Ford, Dave Mills; behind: Peter Godsell, Debby Grice
(the group's former tutor), Alyson Heap, Pete Owen and Martin
Mickleburgh. |
The success encouraged the group to try a second, ‘bigger
and better’ anthology, Disappeared, which includes
two group members’ first and second-placed stories from the
Weston-super-Mare short story competition. But there was a
problem. Perhaps ironically, given the anthology’s title,
one of their intended stories vanished without trace before
publication.
The group appealed for stories from Writers’ News
subscribers to appear in next year’s anthology, with the theme
Reappeared. ‘I hope it will give a little spark of inspiration
to someone,’ says Patricia. ‘Who knows, it might be the germ
of an idea to lead to bigger story or even a novel?’
Disappeared (£5.99, p&p £2) is available
from Tricia Golledge, 14 Auld Kirk Road, Tullibody, Alloa,
Clackmannanshire FK10 2TG; e-mail: golledge@tricia25.freeserve.co.uk |
