What can I say about our April event? Well, I suppose several things really. Firstly, although our November festival went very well, encouraging us to forge ahead, April surpassed my expectations and, for that, I need to thank everyone for all the effort put in. I suppose it has occurred to some of you that I am “quietly” passionate about New Writers UK - I really do believe that, if we work together we’ll achieve marvellous things.
Having started with three of us just over a year ago, then increasing to eight writers, two artists and a proof reader/copy editor in November, we are now 14 writers, two artists, a proof reader/copy editor, photographers and, possibly a team of video photographers (is that the right word?). The interest in our group and the likely increase in membership can only be positive for the future of New Writers UK and for new writers in general. Our networking/contacts are increasing and our ‘voice’ is growing louder at each event.
Of course, the fact that we had a number of very eloquent and fascinating speakers at this event did us no harm at all. Nicola Monaghan, Helen Hollick, Raj Pathak and Jeremy Lewis all gave their time and expertise to us completely free of charge, which to our new and still fairly small group was an invaluable asset and I cannot thank them enough on our behalf. I am delighted to say that Helen and Raj will be joining us again; Helen will be giving a general talk on her books, characters and self-publishing in the morning and has offered to run an hour long workshop on the more technical side of writing in the afternoon. Bearing in mind she is now on her eighth book, her advice will be well worth listening to. Raj, is putting something together which, I believe, will relate to ‘the big screen’ but he’s not giving much away at the moment, so watch this space! Nicola, unfortunately will not be able to join us this time but has sent her very best wishes and expressed an interest in joining us at a future festival. She is busy preparing for a promotional trip to the U.S. and for the film of her first book ‘The Killing Jar’. We wish her huge success with all her endeavours and, I believe it will be fascinating watching her career as her reputation grows both here and in America.
We do though have someone new joining us this time, Jane Hart. I first heard of Jane on the John Holmes show on BBC Radio Nottingham when she was being interviewed about her trip to Uganda and her experiences working with orphaned children whose parents had succumbed to AIDS. Jane will be talking about this trip and her plans to return in the future. Having spoken to Jane and seen photographs of her time in Uganda, I promise you this will be a fascinating talk.
Our programme is not yet complete but as some of it is now planned; details will be posted on our website by 28 August, 2007 but keep checking as more details will be added.
On a final note, something about which I have been very remiss so far – and I can only plead brain fatigue – is that I have not thanked the people without whom the running of our events would stall and I would like to take this opportunity put this right. Celia, Vicky, Mick, Annie, David, Gordon, Jackie, Mick and Karen, Adam and Helen, Rachel and, on the Sunday after Festival II, helping to get the screens back to their rightful place, a certain friend of ours, Henry Collins, who gave up constructing a fort for his son on receiving our SOS. If I have missed anyone from this group, please accept my profound apologies and let me know the next time we meet and I’ll buy you a pint to make up for it.