Ripon Writers' Group

As a regular attender at Swanwick (Writers’ Summer School) since 2006, Maggie was delighted to have her five minute script ‘Bill’s Last Night’ chosen to be performed as a rehearsed reading at this year’s Page to Stage event. Her pleasure was intensified when it won the ‘Swanny’ for Best Drama. None of this would have been possible without fine acting from fellow Swanwickers Geoff Parkes and Andy Cain under the directorship of Neil Zoladkiewicz. Geoff also won the award for Best Performer in a Drama!

Now, thanks to the technical expertise of yet another Swanwick regular, Steve Barnett, it’s available to watch on YouTube. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6moGTOPGXo&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1ZbqEBOrQs6Ce_Kl8HszEr8mNq6K_-4IORL-vFpJRGbFfj8ohDL1RDI7I

Copies of Maggie Cobbett’s ‘Workhouse Orphan’ are now on sale in the Ripon Workhouse Museum, where she did some of her research.

Described by one reviewer as ‘accessible to children but enjoyable for readers of any age’, it should fly off the shelves.

Well, Maggie hopes so, anyway. She’s looking forward to holding a signing session at the Museum later this year.

Available from Amazon as a paperback or download and – of course – from the author herself, ‘Workhouse Orphan’ tells the story of a boy barely in his teens sent up from London to a Yorkshire mining village. Backbreaking work and broad northern speech are hard enough for young David to cope with, but the main thing on his mind is how to rescue the younger siblings he has been forced to leave behind in the workhouse.

This book has taken a couple of years to write, mainly because of the research involved. This has included days spent making notes and talking to experts in the Ripon Workhouse Museum, Beamish Museum and the National Coal Mining Museum for England.

The inspiration for ‘Workhouse Orphan’ lies in an aspect of Maggie’s family history about which she wishes she knew a great deal more. The fact that she does not is why this is a work of fiction rather than a biography.

The long anticipated anthology of members’ work is now available to purchase for the modest sum of £6.50. Please apply to the Secretary for copies.

Five writers, five voices and five stories!

Amongst those taking part in this evening’s launch at the Ripon Spa Hotel were our very own Anna Greenwood and David McAndrew. Anna’s Engrained is a series of tales from different centuries, the common link being an ancient oak. David’s Men at Work was inspired by his recollections of a small engineering firm in 1950s Tyneside.

The five stories, described by Gill Edwards of the Little Ripon Bookshop as ‘A lively collection of fascinating characters and locations’, sprang from a creative writing class run by Andy Croft. All proceeds will go to the Ripon City of Sanctuary Group.

Several RWG members have a foot in more than one literary camp and here is Maggie Cobbett reading from her Anyone For Murder? collection at the York Writers’ Showcase. This was as part of the York Literature Festival HUB programme, a series of free events centred around York Theatre Royal.