The winner was Phil Cook, seen above with adjudicator Ruth Elwin Harris, who described herself as a ‘lapsed’ writer’. In the past, she had penned Sisters of the Quantocks, a quartet of novels for teenagers, and published Billie:The Nevill Letters 1914-16 from a collection of correspondence she came across in the Imperial War Museum.
Turning to the eleven competition entries Ruth said that she had paid more attention to the subject than to the writing. Inevitably her choices were subjective but she said she had looked at four particular things:
• The piece needs to be well written
• The piece needs to be well constructed with a beginning, a middle and an end
• She liked to be made to think
• She felt that presentation was important
Having expanded on her methods Ruth gave her individual comments on the entries before announcing the winners.
First – Phil Cook with ‘Truth and Memory’, inspired by the WW1 exhibition currently on at York Art Gallery.
Second – Peter Page with ‘Atmosphere and Story’, a plea to artists to transcend mere technique and stir the viewer’s imagination.
Third – Cathy Grimmer with ‘Devaluing Creativity’. In Cathy’s absence her article was held over to be read at a later date.
Exceptionally, this meeting was held in the St Wilfrid’s Community Centre. With adjudicator Ann Powell unable to join us, Jan passed on her general comments and invited entrants in no particular order to read out their own mini-sagas. The results were as follows:
• 3rd – Maggie with ‘Pique’ – how a rejected marriage proposal might have sealed the fate of Dresden during WW2
• 2nd – Cathy with ‘The Death of Earth’ – an evacuee from our dying planet thinks of those left behind
• 1st – Phil with ‘Oops!’ – a very literary response to a loving email message sent to the wrong Jason
Jan presented Phil with the trophy.
The other entries were:
• Peter H – ‘Kick Back’ – a couple split up
• Peter P – ‘The Witch’ – a community finds a novel way to solve the problem of a bored witch causing havoc
• Sheila – ‘Death, Where is Thy Sting’ – don’t use a frying pan to kill a wasp if it is on your partner’s head
• Kate (read by Cathy) – ‘Adrift’ – a hospital visit
• Joe – ‘A Family’s Secret’ – memories of visits to the writer’s family in Lincolnshire
• Janet – ‘The Stuff of Fairy Tales’ – the true feelings of a couple at an engagement announcement press call
• Claire – ‘The Catastrophic Collapse of Colchester in 1648’ – factual – the origins of the ‘Humpty Dumpty’ story in the fall of Royalist Colchester to the
Roundheads in 1648
• Carol – ‘Innocence and Experience’ – a reflection on the lure of the apple
• Julie – ‘Journey’s End, New Beginning’ – a woman finally admits that she is in labour at the end of pregnancy
• Caroline – ‘Today’ – ‘Will he come? Yes, the wheelie bin will get emptied this week.’
• Anna – ‘One Lie or Two, Darling?’ – a tale of double duplicity
• Susan – ‘How Being Full of Your Own Self-importance Can Make You Overlook the Obvious and be Unaware of What’s Under Your Nose’ – a neighbour saga
At the first meeting of the New Year, Jan welcomed Andy Croft who was present to give his adjudication of the Group’s 2015 Poetry Competition. After a brief summary of his own career as a published author and poet, Andy gave his reaction to each of the competition entries before announcing the winners. The trophy went to Elizabeth Spearman (who was unable to be at the meeting) for a poem entitled ‘Messenger’. Susan Perkins took second place with ‘An Avid Reader’s Advisory Villanelle’ with third place going to David McAndrew for ‘Lost’. After the refreshment break the entries were read, with time at the end of the meeting for Andy Croft to read two of his own published pieces.
Our adjudication saw a very welcome return visit from journalist Louise Cole, who spoke briefly about her own writing and media agency before giving a detailed critique of each entry.
The articles, all of which Louise had found interesting, spanned a wide range of subject matter and style. She stressed the importance of having a strong idea of what to write and for whom. In particular, the writer should come to the point in the first paragraph and include a powerful hook to engage the reader.
Travel pieces should not only reflect a writer’s own experiences but give insight into what else might be available for future visitors. Nostalgia was fine, but how had the area changed since? Being aware of psychic distance would obviate unfortunate juxtapositions. A heart rending description of a wartime atrocity, for example, should never be followed by ‘and then we bought hats’!
Writers of opinion pieces should include the sources for their facts and figures and avoid undermining themselves by posing questions that they were unable to answer. The main part of the article should focus on essentials, with facts that would be ‘nice to know’ confined to a side panel.
Phil Cook’s travel piece, Trieste:the least known Italian city was the winner of the Jack Moss trophy. In second place was Old Blue Eyes, a review of Frank Sinatra’s latest biography, by Peter Hicks. Sheila Whitfield’s Sweet Satisfaction, which compared today’s sugar consumption with that imposed by rationing during and following WW2, came third.
Unfortunately, once the winning entries had been read out, there was very little time for Louise to speak about her latest venture. She and two friends are now collaborating on romantic stories under the author name of Marisa Hayworth. We shall look forward to hearing more about that on her next visit!
Our adjudicator was local author Steve Toase, a well known figure at open mic nights and literature festivals. With over 50 published stories to his name, Steve was well qualified to judge ours.
After giving us some useful information about finding markets, Steve explained his criteria for a great story and then commented on each entry in turn. In third place, he put Lindsay Trenholme’s Lisette, a story set over two time periods about a pair of paintings and the sinister connection between them. Peter Page came second with Frost on Oak, a story of a marriage influenced by a painting of an oak leaf, and Susan Perkins took the trophy with A Memory: Last, Least, Lost, a story about an 80 year old woman dealing with memory loss.
Jan Maltby thanked Steve for all his hard work on our behalf and invited him to join us at next week’s Literary Allsorts evening at the Golden Lion.
Gary Booth, an English teacher for 35 years, was the adjudicator this time round and began by telling us that he was judging the twelve entries as a reader rather than a writer. In addition, he had focused on the quality of the writing rather than the aspect of history chosen and tried to minimise the influence of his personal interests. He preferred the pieces with a personal angle but considered them all worthy of publication.
Gary then turned to the individual entries in random order and gave comments on each. The winners were as follows:
1st ‘Musical Notation’ by Anna Greenwood: reflections on how this has allowed musicians to connect across the centuries
2nd ‘A Most Remarkable Woman’ by Joe Peters:a potted biography of 19th century Dutch woman Jeanne Merkus
3rd ‘The Wonder of Woolworths’ by Maggie Cobbett: an account of a teenage schoolgirl’s Saturday job
Anna wasn’t present to receive the trophy, but Joe and Maggie are pictured above with Gary. Jan Maltby thanked Gary for an outstanding adjudication and presented him with a token of appreciation from the Group.
We were delighted to welcome York based poet Alan Gillott, joint proprietor of Stairwell Books small press and co-host of The Spoken Word, as our adjudicator.
Alan began by making some general points about what makes a good poem and recommended testing its effectiveness by reading it out loud. Rhythm is important. Rhymes, if used, stand out and should, therefore, always be intentional. A word with more than one meaning depending on how it is pronounced – he gave ‘bow’ as an example – can cause confusion in the mind of the reader. Alan also heavily discouraged the use of similes.
There were more than a dozen entries to the competition this time around and Alan commented on each poem individually before announcing the results. With so many different themes and styles to choose from, his task had been a difficult one, but he awarded the trophy to Cathy Grimmer for Kazakhstan Wedding, a colourful and moving account of a stolen bride’s forced transition from childhood to womanhood. Caroline Slator took second place with He’s Gone and David McAndrew came third with Golden Wedding.
There was time to listen to all the entries before we broke for refreshments, after which Alan was invited to read a selection of his own poems and Jan expressed thanks from the Chair on behalf of the Group.
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