Erskine Writers

 Although we had apologies from Donnie, John H, John Mc and Irene, it was great to see Sandra back amongst us and resuming her rightful place in the hot seat. Again, it was a busy afternoon with results incoming from Russel McLean and his challenge, to write a crime short story on the subject of  “who killed Alexander Black and why”.  On a general note, Russel said that he had thoroughly enjoyed reading all the entries, found them wide-ranging in their scope; the quality was deemed as being excellent and he found something good in all entries. Once again, his adjudications and crits were fulsome and detailed. The winner was Morag with her offering “The Case of the Wrong Question” , a murder with shades of St Mary Mead, her main character Miss M Pearl being a clever anagram of Miss Marple. Rob came second with “It all adze up” although his title received a justified criticism and John H came third with an entry which winged its way in from Australia and we await his return so that we can hear his story. Sandra R had an array of well-known characters in her cleverly crafted piece - some literary and some living. She even gambled on casting our judge, Russel himself, in her tale. Joan’s dark story “The Trap” told of a revenge murder set in Argyll and benefitted from a frightening twist at the end and Hilary’s story “Done and Dusted” had an ingenious plot centred on a real family pet - Puffin, a yellow crested cockatoo and the effects of its dusty wings on those with a respiratory complaint. Irene’s offering “A Black Day” was set in New York and dealt with corruption, bribery and murder in high places. There was time left for some open manuscript readings and Joan offered us “Hair” relating to the disastrous effect of dying one’s hair green and how the problem was resolved - a story based on fact apparently; Ailsa gave us another poem from her upcoming publication, this one about a fox and cleverly entitled “Urban Refugee” and Sandra read out part of her latest novel - still a work in progress - and set on the island of Mull. Next week promises to be quite entertaining as we do some in-house work, writing stories based on real headlines from both national and local newspaper. 1.30 as usual - all welcome and new members encouraged