Our Writers' Group

Epping Forest U3A Writers' Circle

Our Writers' Circle meets under the auspices of The University of the Third Age (U3A). This organisation is now world wide, having arrived in this country from France in 1982. All members are retired or semi-retired, forming self help groups to learn for pleasure or to follow their interests in the company of like-minded people. Our local Branch has six hundred members and over sixty groups, of which the Writers' Circle is one. Each group has a leader, not necessarily with academic qualifications, and meets fortnightly in a member's house.
We only have seven members. Two men and five women. Partly because our venue is small but, having discovered that we all have plenty to say (and write), we don't want passengers. Everybody enthusiastically attends regularly, reads their work and accepts feed-back. Several of us have experienced larger groups with members who only come for counselling or praise, and we've all decided we haven't enough life left for all that.
I, as leader, set homework at each meeting which usually can be interpreted however the member wishes. One lady is a wow at Ruthless Rhymes. e.g.
He fell from the top of a tower block
And landed head first on his pate
The resulting mess made a pleasing sight
And he's now on display at the Tate.
She used to work for Social Services. Need I say more?
Another twists every subject into an anecdote from her fascinating past. She met Picasso years back who sketched her, calling it 'La belle Anglaise' after she had shoved him away. Not knowing who he was, she tore the sketch up a few days later!
Poetry, short stories, articles are all triggered by the homework subjects and work is polished and submitted for publication. One member has had twelve poems accepted by Forward Press and other publications, while others have won short story competitions, had a musical performed on stage and pieces read on radio. A high success rate for people retired from widely differing walks of life, none of them professional writers. An anthology of our work for the millennium sold extremely well so we had a 'jolly' on the proceeds.
One source of ideas is 'The Creative Writing Coursebook' from the University of East Anglia but I use other triggers, including pictures from magazines (to a concerted groan), but they still come up with the goods. The fortnightly meetings are hard working but great fun and our summer and Christmas lunches in local hostelries are a riot. We all like a glass or three.
Several members subscribe to literary magazines and we pool information and exchange the magazines, together with the URLs of Writers' web sites. Writing has encouraged us all to become computer literate, even our oldest member, the Picasso lady, at eighty-four.
Writing can be a lonely business but reading work to trusted people who give considered opinions and who in turn accept feed-back helps tremendously with editing. It is so easy to become enthralled with a particular phrase and work the whole piece round it, when that is just what should be edited out.
I have learned so much over the past seven years since I became leader of the Writef's Group, I am now having my first book of short stories published by Circaidy Gregory Press. See my web site.
Pam Eaves