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Erskine Writers Meeting 12th November 2024

There were ten attendees today with apologies received from Donnie, Joan, Jeannie and Ted.

Rob began with a recap of the exercises that we did last week with performance poet Jenny Lindsay. The details are on last week’s blog and form the basis of the poetry competition which can use any one of the exercises as a starting point. 

Each member is limited to two entries to the competition and the competition guidelines can be found in the blog. The deadline for the competition is the 3rd of December and entries should be sent to the Competitions Secretary, Morag as a PDF.

Sandra's good news was that on Thursday the 14th of November she has been invited to Paisley Abbey where the University of the West of Scotland will award her an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

We were reminded that the Erskine Writers will be moving venue from 7 January 2025 to the Erskine Community Sports Centre.

Hillary gave us a full and interesting account of her trip to India and Goa which was crammed full of trips to nature reserves and parks where she saw a wonderful selection of animals and birds that made the early morning starts and the bumpy transport worthwhile. 

John Hughes reminds us of the Arts and Craft Fair and also that on the 16th of November at 7:30 PM on YouTube, the group yobcultcha will be releasing a Christmas single entitled I'm going to funk all over yule.

Lorna read Hillary’s short story, My Golden Treasure, the idea for which came from a bag of hair things dating from the 1900s that were found in her loft.

Rob read an extract form from the family history he is writing for his children and grandchildren – a dialogue piece entitled, I beg your pardon, Mr Previn, an account of a real meeting with the conductor while Rob was at Aberystwyth University.

Brian's contribution was belated response to the Kelvin Grove visit entitled, A formidable body of work that told about the life of Russell M Saunders, a Canadian acrobat who worked as a film stuntman. Saunders was the life model for Salvador Dali's Christ of Saint John of the Cross. 

John Hughes takes 9 words from his daily Wordle competition and writes a flash fiction piece using those words. He read out three pieces today.

Next week’s meeting is based on the theme of a letter to an agony aunt. Each member will write a problem to an agony aunt and pass it to another member who will reply as the agony aunt.  

Erskine Writers Meeting 5th November 2024

 Apologies were received from Donnie, Hilary, Joan, Lorna, Elizabeth, Jeannie and Ted.

This was our first workshop of the session and was one based on poetry. Our guest was Jenny Lindsay a performance poet from Maybole in Ayrshire. Originally a singer/ songwriter and Modern Studies teacher, a burglary at her flat in Edinburgh when her trusty electric piano was stolen forced her into reciting her lyrics rather than singing them at various open mic events. This was favourably received and she hasn’t looked back since. Describing herself as a political/feminist poet she has also written plays, literary essays and, as a freelance writer, is a regular columnist with, amongst others, The Times, The Spectator and The Australian.
The underlying theme of her workshop was taking the fear out of writing poems and she had designed or cobbled from others four exercises which the group were to undertake. Each exercise was very closely timed, Jenny actually employing a timer from which she counted us down to the very last second, and lasted for seven minutes - “seven being a magical number”
Initially we were to write on the theme of “the world is not watching” - a poem written in sleep. Anything and everything could be included as long as the pen never left the paper. If we stalled at any point, we were to continue to write the words “I am writing” until the muse rejoined us.
Secondly, a list poem based on one of Jenny’s own works written about an ex-boyfriend. This could be things I love, hate, remember etc and we were allowed to pause during the this exercise.
The third offering was a poem written about a specific feature of a loved one - be it one at which we “marvelled” or one we loathed. This could be anything from snoring (which was used!) to the time taken to apply make-up to things of a more general nature.
Finally, we were to write a poem based on the views from a specific window. This was structured with first the view, then the sounds followed by the smells associated with it. This was then developed with the idea of, as we stared out of the window, we were clutching something we held most dear and finally when the view was interrupted by a a visitor of some description.
It was a very enjoyable afternoon and quite challenging but cleverly designed to achieve the ultimate goal of approaching poetry writing with greater confidence.
Her challenge for the competition was to write a poem based on one of the following 
The Window Exercise, Someone You Love who has an annoying habit or The Truth.
Maximum of 40 lines to Morag by 3rd December.

Erskine Writers Meeting 29th October 2024

 There were eleven members in attendance today. The topic for homework was to rewrite lyrics of a well known song.

Lorna had been regaled by her staff at her retirement with a rendition of a new set of lyrics to the Calypso tune from Joseph, a musical she’d put on twice during her time as head teacher at Hermitage primary school. She’d brought the tune on her phone and we all had fun singing the refrain.
Brian had rewritten words to “The Wild Rover” all about the club and we again joined in with the refrain to “The Ballad of Erskine Writers”
Irene’s lyrics were alternate words to Abba’s “Dancing Queen” in praise of a dinner of Heinz Baked beans. Very witty.
Sandra Reid chose “Love is all Around” by Wet Wet Wet to write alternative lyrics about ageing. An absolute hoot with Brian singing.
Jackie sobered us all up with a more thoughtful version of Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a wonderful World” “What have we done to our world?” Very insightful.
Rob wrote a super ditty to “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” all about his Mum taking the family to an agricultural fair in Wales. Great fun. 
John H used “Come up and see me, make me smile ”  Cockney Rebel for his “World flash fiction is my style” but didn’t sing it. We need to hear it sung one day, John! Very good.

   Joan read out a superb story about the Clydebank blitz from the viewpoint of a young mother, based on a true account from her mother-in-law. Beautifully written.
Morag read us excerpts from  a feature on time travel from Mslexya magazine.
Sandra McG read a sequel short story to “Lord of the Rings” 
Joan then read the synopsis of a prequel to The Secret Garden. We look forward to the finished story,
Rob read us a moving ghost story with a difference entitled Smudges. 

The meeting closed early to enable members to visit a possible new venue in Erskine Sports centre.
This is a much larger space and is within the auspices of an arts centre, an ideal fit for the group. It will enable us to accommodate more members, have tea and have a space that is flexible for visiting speakers and social events. Highly approved. The thought is that we will move there at the start of the new year in January. The arts centre's full time employees, Ally and Jason are very keen to have us as part of their programme and it may well prove an exciting and fulfilling move. Plenty of parking and a bus stop close by.

Erskine Writers Meeting 22nd October 2024

 15 members attended an interesting meeting on the topic of time travel.

We had topics from many previous centuries including possible future ones.

Lorna tackled her experience of contrasting Italian and French celebrations when their national teams won a major football trophy, whilst John H took us back to 1692 when the Glencoe massacre took place, but managed to find there was still remnants of human kindness.

Jackie took us forward to a scary future where Elon Musk ruled the world; younger members of the population were settling in a Mars colony created by Spacex.  However the older population who struggled with the new concepts were disposed of by the invitation to travel back to a decade of their choice.  This offer however was a major con which created the opportunity for Musk to dispose of those people who only look back.  

Joyce wanted us to remember the trams that finally stopped running In the 60s with the last run heading to the depot at Pollokshields.  The people lined the streets with streamers and flags.  We were reminded of how popular they were except by male conductors who hated having woman drivers during the war years.

Morag offered two contrasting journalist stories on the death of Boudica and her battles with the Romans.  One side demonstrated Roman brutality,  but the other cast Boudica and her followers as terrorists causing death and mayhem to the Roman ranks.

Sandra R gave us a different insight into the assassination of JFK In Dallas In 1963 through a 26 second video taken by a man called Abraham Zapruder.  He died In the same hospital as Oswald, Ruby and Kennedy but subsequently the state paid 16 million dollars to his family to own and preserve the video.

Irene wanted to remind us of how people In our local area were affected by the first world war and took us to the Battle of George Square, Glasgow where history was unclear whether the 20-25,000 men who gathered there just wanted to seek change that would create jobs for men back from the war or was part of a revolution  similar to one’s taking place elsewhere due to civil unrest.

John took us to the world of the Reverend Robert Kirk who In the 17^th century wrote a treatise on fairy folklore, The Secret Commonwealth but died before it was published.  Legends arose after his death saying he had been taken away for revealing the Elves secrets.

Brian, who loves his props, gave us the world of Davy Crockett and the Battle of the Alamo through a magical pocket watch that allowed its owner to travel back In time.  Surprisingly a lot of British people joined Crockett to support Texas' bid for independence including a John McGregor from Aberfeldy.  

In response to last week's exercise Elizabeth gave us an interesting rework of Goldilocks and the three bears where Goldilocks was a rebellious child and her father wrote the story to help his daughter learn from it.

Jackie and Joan read out their entries to Greenock Writers and the critiques received.  Joan’s was a humorous tale called ‘The Visitor' where a highland calf called Jess got into a top floor apartment of a high flat.  Jackie's was called Nobody's Trophy about a coercive relationship between an older man and a younger woman which Greenock gave 3^rd place to.

In relation to a possible future venue for group meetings it was confirmed we would stop earlier on the 29 October to enable a visit to the upstairs of Erskine Sports Centre.

Erskine Writers Meeting 15th October 2024

Sandra opened proceedings with a poem entitled 'Aunt Nellie'. Jeannie read her piece from her visit to Kelvingrove entitled 'Towers of Neglected Diseases without a Cure'. We then heard readings from today's syllabus topic where we had to draft the framework/synopsis, of our imagined prequel, or sequel, to a famous novel.

Rob's piece was 'In Memory of Mrs Lloyd' Billy Bunter meets the famous five. John M was a prequel  'The Seeds of Justice' from the book 'Death in La Venice' by Donna Leon. Irene also had a prequel to Aldous Huxley's 'A Brave New World' entitled 'The road to Creation'. Sandra had a sequel to Roald Dahl's 'Matilda'. Morag had a sequel to 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martell which was aimed at children. Joyce had a sequel to 'Gone with the Wind'. John H another sequel entitled 'The Pursuit of Red' from the book 'Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption' by Stephen King. Jeannie completed the submissions with 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' by Harper Lee where the story is seen through the eyes of Calpurnia the kitchen cook who plays an integral role in the lives and upbringing of Scout and Jim.

The afternoon continued with the results from from the submissions critiqued by Greenock Writers. There were 12 submissions and they awarded a first, second, third places and two commended.

Commended   My Golden Treasure  by Hilary

                        Scout’s Honour by Brian

3^rd  place         Nobody’s Trophy by Jackie

2^nd place         Killing Time by John S.

1^st place          Betrayal by John H.

We heard three readings from John H, Sandra R and Rob.

Jeannie completed the session with a very in-depth piece based on the operation on her finger called 'Aliens'

Erskine Writers Meeting 8th October 2024

Today's meeting we heard readings based on our visit to Kelvingrove Galleries last week. 

Hilary read her piece from the suspended heads entitled 'Heads. John H had poem entitled 'The Deserter' from the painting by William Kennedy. Morag had a short story 'Two Children Unfinished' based on the painting by Jean Eardley. Joan who was unable to attend the visit last week did a memoire entitled 'Kelvingrove' Sandra R based her piece on Salvador Dali. Irene who also couldn't make the visit did a very good piece on the history of the museum with the view to writing a story on information gathered. John M gave a very informative insight of the painting by Francesco Di Stefano. Jackie also delivered a very informative piece inspired by the paintings of Marianne Grant. Rob finished today's session with his piece entitled 'Specialis Filia Romanae Ecclesiae'

Another rich and informative afternoon from the group.