Our last meeting was on Thursday 13th October 2022 when our speaker was local author, Lynn Clement. After Lynn retired from teaching, she decided to follow her desire to do some creative writing so looked for local courses. At that time, BCoT was running a Creative Writing Course in the evenings so she registered along with about 10 other like minded people. Unfortunately, this evening course was unable to continue so Lynn looked for other courses and found one at Peter Symonds in Winchester so enrolled into that. At the same time Lynn also joined a writing group that was being run at the Discovery Centre in Basingstoke every Monday.
The tutor at Peter Symonds was very inspirational and this is where Lynn’s journey really began. Lynn was particularly interested in the genre of flash fiction which is defined as a very brief story and can be as short as six words but is typically about 300 words. Lynn started writing flash fiction and entering competitions run by the Hampshire Writers. The first competition Lynn entered had the title “someone struggling with special needs”. Lynn had already written a story about a little autistic boy who didn’t like red, but this competition required it to be 300 words, and her version was currently 750 words. So, Lynn reviewed her story taking out unnecessary words, entered and won!
Through the Hampshire Writers Meetings, Lynn was introduced to author, Allison Symes. When Lynn submitted her first book “The City of Stories” to Chapeltown Books she was offered a publishing contract and Allison was allocated to be her editor. “The City of Stories” was published in September 2021 and is a series of very short stories and poems covering a variety of topics including romance, horror and comedy. Lynn has also published another book “Aftermath” which is short stories about the pandemic.
Lynn ended by reading a couple of stories from “The City of Stories”. Lynn is passionate about her writing and is an inspiration that you can do anything if you can put your mind to it.
Our forthcoming meetings are:
- Thursday 10th November 2022: More Tales from the Beat – we welcome back Jackie Dimmock to entertain us with her humorous descriptions of life as police officer supported by one of her superb mini quilts. Laughter guaranteed!!
- Thursday 8th December 2022: Christmas Party with Majestic Wines – a return visit to help us understand wine and food pairing as we approached the festive season.
If you are interested in joining us at one of our Meetings, held in the Rathbone Pavilion, please contact Carolyn Brown
