The group will be taking a short break until the autumn, when we will be back in action with new facilitator Morgan.
If you are new to the group and would like to join, or to receive updates on upcoming sessions, get in touch using this blog's message function and we'll add you to the mailing list.
Friday 30 June 2023
Dalston Writing Group Takes A Break Until September 2023
Friday 19 May 2023
Next Meeting: Thurs 1 June & New Workshop with Sara Nisha Adams
After a short break, Dalston Writing Group will be back in action on Thurs 1 June. Join us at Dalston CLR James Library, 6.00 to 7.30pm.
And on Thurs 8 June, join author Sara Nisha Adams for a special workshop at Stoke Newington Library, themed around 'Home'. Find out more and register here.
Sara is a writer and editor. She lives in London and was born in Hertfordshire to Indian and English parents. Her debut novel The Reading List was a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Fiction 2021. Her second novel The Twilight Garden is released on 8th June.
This event is supported by Stoke Newington Bookshop, who will be selling copies of The Twilight Garden (2023) and The Reading List (2021) that Sara Nisha Adams will be happy to sign at the end of the evening.
Wednesday 3 May 2023
No Meeting on Thurs 4 May, But We'll Be Back in June
Dalston Writing Group will not be taking place on Thurs 4 May, but we promise to be back in action with new plans in June. Details and dates to follow.
In the meantime, the Bridport Prize for flash fiction, short stories and novel extracts is open until 31 May.
Anthology magazine are running a handful of prizes, open until August
The Moth Short Story Prize is open until 30 June.
In the meantime, the Bridport Prize for flash fiction, short stories and novel extracts is open until 31 May.
Anthology magazine are running a handful of prizes, open until August
The Moth Short Story Prize is open until 30 June.
Monday 27 March 2023
Be Part of Indie Novella's New Local Anthology
On Saturday 22nd April Indie Novella and local heritage organisation Newington Green Meeting House, are thrilled to launch the Hackney Writers and Communities Anthology showcasing the work and stories local writers and authors and the communities they represent.
Indie Novella are inviting local community members to join them from 1pm to 3pm at Newington Green Meeting House where they will be hosting some drinks and nibbles followed by a panel discussion with local authors to tell everyone more about the project, how Indie Novella is bringing more local writers into publishing, and how you and your community can be involved.
View the Eventbrite page.
Newington Green Meeting House events page.
Indie Novella will accept any form of writing, be it excerpts from novels, short stories, poetry, essays, opinions etc, and your thoughts on what it is like to be part of a community. Those interested in submitting their writing can do so here.
Indie Novella are delighted to launch a special and specific Hackney / Haringey / surrounding areas Call for Submissions, with a chance to get an extract of your work published in an anthology showcasing the work of local writers, and win £100 in book vouchers from Ink@84 Bookshop. Indie Novella are publishing an anthology specifically to showcase the work of local writers in Hackney, Haringey and the neighbouring areas and would love to hear from you and showcase your work. Please find the details below: https://www.indienovella.co.uk/local-voices
One of the key reason Indie Novella was set up was to give a voice to writers whose stories previously went unheard. As such Indie Novella is looking to create a 'living novel' full of stories from the communities closest to us. Funded by the Arts Council, and through the contributions of local writers, be it experienced authors or first time writers, we are creating an anthology which will showcase the writing of the residents of Hackney, Haringey and the surrounding areas and will demonstrate the changing face of our communities and what they means to us, right now.
You can submit anything between 30 and 5,000 words - an extract of a novel, a short story, poetry, essays, opinion pieces - and it can cover any theme just as long as it is your own work. Your extract also does not need to be in English and we welcome submissions in any language.
With each submission Indie Novella also want to hear about you and your story. It can be a couple of hundred words or quite a bit longer, and can be anything you want - what being a resident of Hackney, Haringey, Highbury etc means to you; how you came to live here; how you feel it has changed in your time; or just about you and anything you want to say. We want our anthology to provide an authentic representation of the wide and varied voices of our communities and showcase the creativity that stems from them.
The idea is to create a 'time capsule' especially post-pandemic of what it means to be a resident in London and what our communities are really like.
One entry will win £100 of book vouchers from Ink@84 Bookshop in Highbury and a host of others will be published in our 'living novel'.
You can submit your contributions over email to info@indienovella.co.uk or through the link below. Please feel free to ask any questions.
https://www.indienovella.co.uk/local-voices
Indie Novella are inviting local community members to join them from 1pm to 3pm at Newington Green Meeting House where they will be hosting some drinks and nibbles followed by a panel discussion with local authors to tell everyone more about the project, how Indie Novella is bringing more local writers into publishing, and how you and your community can be involved.
View the Eventbrite page.
Newington Green Meeting House events page.
Indie Novella will accept any form of writing, be it excerpts from novels, short stories, poetry, essays, opinions etc, and your thoughts on what it is like to be part of a community. Those interested in submitting their writing can do so here.
Indie Novella are delighted to launch a special and specific Hackney / Haringey / surrounding areas Call for Submissions, with a chance to get an extract of your work published in an anthology showcasing the work of local writers, and win £100 in book vouchers from Ink@84 Bookshop. Indie Novella are publishing an anthology specifically to showcase the work of local writers in Hackney, Haringey and the neighbouring areas and would love to hear from you and showcase your work. Please find the details below: https://www.indienovella.co.uk/local-voices
One of the key reason Indie Novella was set up was to give a voice to writers whose stories previously went unheard. As such Indie Novella is looking to create a 'living novel' full of stories from the communities closest to us. Funded by the Arts Council, and through the contributions of local writers, be it experienced authors or first time writers, we are creating an anthology which will showcase the writing of the residents of Hackney, Haringey and the surrounding areas and will demonstrate the changing face of our communities and what they means to us, right now.
You can submit anything between 30 and 5,000 words - an extract of a novel, a short story, poetry, essays, opinion pieces - and it can cover any theme just as long as it is your own work. Your extract also does not need to be in English and we welcome submissions in any language.
With each submission Indie Novella also want to hear about you and your story. It can be a couple of hundred words or quite a bit longer, and can be anything you want - what being a resident of Hackney, Haringey, Highbury etc means to you; how you came to live here; how you feel it has changed in your time; or just about you and anything you want to say. We want our anthology to provide an authentic representation of the wide and varied voices of our communities and showcase the creativity that stems from them.
The idea is to create a 'time capsule' especially post-pandemic of what it means to be a resident in London and what our communities are really like.
One entry will win £100 of book vouchers from Ink@84 Bookshop in Highbury and a host of others will be published in our 'living novel'.
You can submit your contributions over email to info@indienovella.co.uk or through the link below. Please feel free to ask any questions.
https://www.indienovella.co.uk/local-voices
Friday 24 March 2023
No Meeting on Thurs 6 April (but you can still come and use our space...)
Unfortunately your friendly local writing group facilitator (that would be Jon) will not be available to run the next scheduled meeting on Thurs 6 April.
However, if anyone would like to come and make use of our usual meeting space in the Education Room at Dalston CLR James Library between 6.00 and 7.30pm that day, we'll make it available so that people can meet, write and share their work as usual.
However, if anyone would like to come and make use of our usual meeting space in the Education Room at Dalston CLR James Library between 6.00 and 7.30pm that day, we'll make it available so that people can meet, write and share their work as usual.
Friday 10 March 2023
2023 Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize
The 2023 Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize is open for submissions. The competition is funded by Brick Lane Bookshop, sponsored by Mushens Entertainment, partnering with Spread the Word.
The competition is for original short fiction between 1000 and 5000 words.
First Prize is £1000, Second Prize is £250, Third Prize is £100.
The three prize winners will each receive a development meeting with a member of the Spread the Word team, a year’s membership to their London Writers Network, plus four free places for workshops and courses on their regular programme
1st, 2nd & 3rd prize winners will also receive individual feedback on submission materials from Mushens Entertainment
Twelve longlisted stories will be published in Brick Lane Bookshop New Short Stories 2023
The competition deadline is 5pm, April 3rd 2023. The entry fee is £10.
Full info here.
Entry form here.
More on Brick Lane Bookshop here.
Monday 27 February 2023
2 March 2023: World Book Day Special! Stories About Stories And Their Tellers
For World Book Day on Thurs 2 March our theme was readers, writers, texts and manuscripts, fictional characters who come to life, bookshops, libraries and anything else associated with the written word.
Check out our prompts below:
1/ Your character is an author who has given up on their current project and doesn’t know if they’ll ever complete it. One night, two dodgy characters of the author’s own creation turn up at the door wanting a word...
2/ Your character discovers an old diary (their own or someone else's) and begins to read…
3/ Take a real author (dead or alive) and make them the subject of a story. Bonus points for anything that includes time-travel or culture clash. (What would Jane Austen be like on Insta…?
4/ Someone your character went to school with has, unexpectedly, become a famous and lauded novelist. There’s a Netflix adaptation in the works. Your character reads the book and is convinced that the main character is based on them…
5/ Your character finds what looks like the completed manuscript for a novel in a bag on a bus. (For a brilliant treatment of a similar premise, see Morven Callar by Alan Warner or Lila, Lila by Martin Suter)
6/ Your character is an aspiring author. But instead of concentrating on the book they dream of writing, they have become obsessed with getting their author’s biog or cover blurb perfect…
7/ In the library you pick up a random novel and start leafing through it. Folded into the pages is an anonymously written letter that begins ‘Dear Reader, Congratulations, you have found me…’
8/ Write a piece that is somehow about a single word. It can be a real word, or you can make up your own, complete with definition and examples of usage.
9/ Your character has been given the job of ghost-writing the memoir of someone famous or notorious in their field with a reputation for not suffering fools.. Write a scene where the two of them meet for the first time…
10/ A not-very-successful novelist is picking up a bottle of wine at the self-service kiosk in Tesco when someone taps them on the shoulder and says, “Hey! I can’t believe it. Are you really…?”
Check out our prompts below:
1/ Your character is an author who has given up on their current project and doesn’t know if they’ll ever complete it. One night, two dodgy characters of the author’s own creation turn up at the door wanting a word...
2/ Your character discovers an old diary (their own or someone else's) and begins to read…
3/ Take a real author (dead or alive) and make them the subject of a story. Bonus points for anything that includes time-travel or culture clash. (What would Jane Austen be like on Insta…?
4/ Someone your character went to school with has, unexpectedly, become a famous and lauded novelist. There’s a Netflix adaptation in the works. Your character reads the book and is convinced that the main character is based on them…
5/ Your character finds what looks like the completed manuscript for a novel in a bag on a bus. (For a brilliant treatment of a similar premise, see Morven Callar by Alan Warner or Lila, Lila by Martin Suter)
6/ Your character is an aspiring author. But instead of concentrating on the book they dream of writing, they have become obsessed with getting their author’s biog or cover blurb perfect…
7/ In the library you pick up a random novel and start leafing through it. Folded into the pages is an anonymously written letter that begins ‘Dear Reader, Congratulations, you have found me…’
8/ Write a piece that is somehow about a single word. It can be a real word, or you can make up your own, complete with definition and examples of usage.
9/ Your character has been given the job of ghost-writing the memoir of someone famous or notorious in their field with a reputation for not suffering fools.. Write a scene where the two of them meet for the first time…
10/ A not-very-successful novelist is picking up a bottle of wine at the self-service kiosk in Tesco when someone taps them on the shoulder and says, “Hey! I can’t believe it. Are you really…?”
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