October 2023 Meeting Minutes

 

HIGH TOWN WRITERS’ WRAP-UP

Venue: Peepo

Date: 24 October 2023

Timeslot: 7 pm till 10 pm

Apple-for-teacher types: Ann, Jennie, Liz, Sue, Kath & Andy, Stuart, Adam, me (Alex)

Letter-sent-to-parents types: Marie, Jayne, Martin, Irena

Frontman for the evening: Me

 

 

INTRO

 

High Town [note the new format] Writers’ most recent gathering was a particularly scintillating event. Nine prose peddlers and poetry purists assembled upstairs at the Peeps for a night of word wizardry at its finest.

 

So, was this sudden surge in attendance a result of my being the host for the evening…??

 

No.

 

Right then, I started off by setting the next assignment, which is covered in the relevant section below, and Jennie just about pipped Adam to the post when it came to volunteering to host the next main meeting, and so I had to make an executive decision. Therefore, Adam will host the next mid-month meeting, and Jennie will host the next main meeting. Details of both – the meetings that is, – can be found under the appropriate heading below.

 

After this, I introduced our first, and only, activity for the evening, which was Pass the Piece.

 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this task, the idea is to write a piece using a few starter sentences, which on this occasion were these:

 

I awoke at about dawn.

Sleeping on a park bench is never the best of ideas, particularly when you have a bad back…

 

This inspired some interesting, amusing and descriptive results, and, not for the first time, Jennie and I seemed to be on the same wavelength – I put this down to being poetically minded…

 

READ-OUTS

 

Next up, it was time for the read-outs portion of the evening.

 

Ann imparted the second instalment of her police saga. This time, the heroine – who was tackling heroin – went incognito, via a blonde wig, to pose as an enticing lady, in an attempt to snare a drug dealer. An absorbing tale, Ann!

 

Jennie then recited a fascinating and informative 11^th-century-themed piece of faction – which is currently available to read on this blog – about a real-life historical figure named Robert de Bellème , a vicious Norman tyrant, with an equally brutal mother called Mabel, who terrorised Bridgnorth’s humble citizens, the sod! As you may have guessed, it was a most gruesome tale. On the positive side, however,  De Bellème did orchestrate the building of Bridgnorth Castle. There, you see: no one is entirely bad; shame on you all for judging him so harshly.

 

This then led to a discussion about the Normans’ origins, with Stuart’s briefly recounting the life of a Viking leader named Rollo… I’ve heard of that name before…

 

Liz was next to take the stand, and read out Irena’s most recent contribution to the group. It was entitled simply “Utopia” and was a rather topical and quirky account of life under “Rev”, an AI-type being whose main objective was to create a global utopia. As you may have guessed, it had an Orwellian/Huxley feel to it. I really need to update my references…

 

Sue then read out “Leaving for Lagos”, which had been inspired by the following lines:

 

There is a crowd of people. So many that there is barely room to move and people are crushed up against each other…

 

The piece detailed the female character’s frustration upon learning that her Lagos flight had been cancelled, owing to a Nigerian aeroplane company’s failure to pay its fuel bills. How inconsiderate!

 

Kath then announced that she was going to read out a piece entitled “Boobies in the eye of the beholder”.

 

Now then, when I heard that title, I felt sure that Kath had blatantly plagiarised one of my limericks, and so I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it was a piece about her travels to the Galapagos Islands. It described her experience aboard a 20-man boat, and included descriptions of the wildlife that could be seen from it – including the blue-footed booby, the marine iguana and their environments.

 

Andy, who is currently studying a non-fiction-writing course, narrated a letter that he had composed that was addressed to a fictitious magazine. The letter ended with a description of a fireworks display.

 

Adam had written some prose; it was called “Goodbye, Charing Cross. Hello, Piccadilly Circus”. This too had been inspired by the lines quoted above. In Adam’s imagining, the people were crushed against one another within a train’s confines, with only technology to occupy them. His main character had unfortunately ended up in the wrong place: Primrose Hill. The piece sounded like a postcard, which is what Adam had intended.

 

THE BOOK

 

Then it was time for a break, and I handed over to Liz, to allow her to give us an update on the status of the group’s highly anticipated, forthcoming tome.

 

So:

 

Julia Buckley, one of the group’s founders, has agreed to provide a foreword for our book. Well, it’s not every day you receive a foreword from a potential MP with a PhD! Ah, initialisms…

 

Our bios need to be written in the third person – and not the first person. Looks as though I’ll have to make some amendments to mine, then.

 

Also, despite the fact that we’re all an exceptionally beautiful and handsome bunch, not one of us wanted a photo of themself to accompany their bio – well, we don’t want to start getting mobbed in the streets, now, do we. Critical acclaim is our only motivation.

 

Some of us – including me! – were very pro the cover that Martin designed for the book, yet others weren’t as enthused and suggested one of Stuart’s paintings as a potential alternative. So, the proposal seems to be as follows:

 

Martin’s cover remains; Stuart’s painting graces the book’s back cover.

 

Stuart’s painting appears on the book’s front cover; Martin’s cover is used as a backdrop to the book’s contents page.

 

I feel another email vote coming up…

 

Hey – we need a blurb for the back cover…

 

Jennie, one of the group’s premier poets, has been nominated to write a “thank-you poem” to the Peeps, which will be our book’s final piece.

 

So there you have it! We had a good session, and we didn’t leave the building until 10.05 pm! Wow! It was like being at The Crown!

 

FURTHER WRITING ACTIVITIES

 

As I mentioned above, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to contribute a fresh, non-blogged piece of prose or poetry to the book, inspired by one of the book’s chapters, which are as follows: “Change”, “Love”, “Survival”, “Elsewhere”, “Life”, “Sentiment”, “Memories”, “Summer days”, “Crossroads”, “Transformation”, “Remembrance”, “Goodwill”. The deadline for this assignment is, as always, the next main meeting.

 

VERY IMPORTANT DATES

 

The next meeting will take place at The Crown, on Thursday, 9 November, at 7 pm. It will be chaired by Adam.

 

The one after that is scheduled for Tuesday, 28 November, at 7 pm, and our most gracious host will be Peepo. This get-together will be chaired by Jennie.

 

After that, just to be a bit different, the group’s Christmas meal has been pencilled in for Wednesday, 6 December, at 7 – 7.30 pm, at Peepo.

 

And then, of course, there’s my forthcoming 29^th birthday – but that’s quite enough of that…

 

See you at the meetings!

 

 

Alex