Our regular Wednesday sessions are a great reason to join Reading Writers, with a mix of member-led write-ins and presentations, guest speakers and the monthly Manuscript Night. But that’s not all we do. We also run social events in the summer and a brace of special days, for those who want to spend a bit more time on the craft of word.
Our Secretary, Meg Woodward, tells us more about the latest RW awayday.
On Saturday 13th May Reading Writers gathered at the Market Place for their annual Writers’ Day. Writers’ Day is an opportunity for our members to meet for a full day, away from the usual distractions and procrastinations of life, so we can focus on the craft and practice of writing.
This year we were joined by special guest author K M Elkes, author of the short fiction collection All That Is Between Us, which was shortlisted for a Saboteur Award in 2020. Elkes has been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and many of his short stories have won, or been placed, in international writing competitions including the Manchester Fiction Prize, Royal Society of Literature VS Pritchett Prize, Fish Publishing Prize and the Bridport Prize.
Elkes spoke to us about a principle of better writing, Seduction Not Instruction, which elaborates and improves upon the idea of the old adage Show Don’t Tell. For Elkes, seductive writing is writing that is evocative, that is as much about what is not said as what is stated explicitly, where the reader is given the space to imagine and fill in the gaps for themselves. In order to help us write more seductively, Elkes gave us a number of writing exercises to complete, including ‘Word Pinball’ and analysis of some particularly seductive stories.
In the afternoon we tried our hand at journalism with a writing exercise involving newspaper headlines, as well as discussing characterisation and how to write better people into our stories. We ended the day with a well-deserved pint in the pub, and with plenty of inspiration to take away with us.
Thank you to K M Elkes for providing our morning workshop, and for all the writers who attended!
Ken will also be judging our Spring Competition, so it was a real bonus for him to give up a Saturday to be with us. Sounds like a great time was had by all!
READING WRITERS 