How An Over 50s Writers’ Group Became A Publisher
An Openwriting article by Steph Spiers
Steph Spiers brings inspirational news for all writers, everywhere. If you want to get into print, or see your words on the Net, JOIN A WRITING GROUP!
Writing alone is a lonely road to travel. It is well recognised that wannabe writers who go it alone with no feedback from an informed peer group seldom progress, or improve the standard of their material.
Beginners who rely on family and friends for feedback are often either over, or under, praised by folks with other agendas and usually no writing experience themselves. Not so in the supportive atmosphere of a writers’ circle where objective feedback can be found, and by listening to the style, and mistakes, of others the standard of work produced usually rises in leaps and bounds.
Writers’ groups have different objectives. Some are perfectly happy to merely share their work amongst themselves and continue only with their own project material. Other groups are more pro-active and may publish anthologies of poetry or short stories. This often involves raising funds.
Rising Brook Writers in Stafford is one of the latter. Set up in 2005 Rising Brook Writers was formed by a group of mature students who met on a Keele University Creative Writing course. The ambitious founders soon grew tired of only sitting round a table in the branch library and decided to be more pro-active in the community.
In 2006 they wrote, designed and published their first anthology ‘Tales From the Gaiety’ a homage to British Music Hall – became a registered charitable trust – and carried out 40 creative writing workshops which then began touring the county’s organisations for the elderly.
Seeing a unique opportunity the charitable trust, now established as a niche service provider promoting literacy and good mental health through exposure to the literary arts in surroundings where the Over 50s participants feel secure, decided to also raise funds for joint writing ventures.
In 2007 they published their second anthology, ‘Tales of the Supernatural’ and held another 45 creative writing workshops – the touring ones this time being led by a professional author and university lecturer. Material from the 2007 tour was published in the book ‘Stafford Remembers the 1940s and 1950s’ which launched to record media acclaim – two full page spreads in the local papers – in early Spring 2008.
Their first poetry collection ‘Staffordshire Introspective’ an eclectic mix of works by twelve workshop participants was released in June 2008 during an all day Drama Workshop aimed to promote the group’s poets and drama writers at the Stafford Gatehouse Theatre complex. The day, which coincides with the local cultural festival, aimed to show beginners how the written word is transformed on to the stage and was being hosted in conjunction with a professional Stage Writing Tutor, an Artistic Director and actors from Etruria Café Theatre.
In addition the voluntary, not-for-profit, charity operates a weekly On-line e-bulletin for those unable to travel and four websites on which the works of participants are published :
www.risingbrookwriters.btik.com and www.myspace.com/risingbrookwriters www.myspace.com/risingbrookwriterslive and a Facebook profile.
They also hold meet-and-greet stands at local shows and exhibitions and have joined the local Arts Council and Voluntary Services. Aiming to escape the folds of grant aid, in 2008 the charity progressed into book sales and has thus, in three short years, virtually become an embryonic publishing house.
However, in spite of the pace of progress this successful collaboration clings to its humble beginnings. The weekly group-hug at the library workshop is still in operation and welcomes a broad spectrum of writers from old hands to absolute beginners.
During the last three years the success rate of individual writers has also been encouraging – two plays by two different writers have been staged by professional companies – a film script is under consideration by an indie company – several writers have been published in magazines – one in a hard cover short story book – one has self-published a novel – one has set up a linked writers’ group for U3A – one won a national poetry competition – two have novels under consideration by a publishing house – another has found an agent – all are now web-published and all have their works lodged in the British Library. Current projects involve a new comedy set in the 1960s coming out before Christmas which is also being produced as an audio book and a comedy crime thriller set in the 1980s featuring a disgraced ex-copper Private Eye.
For all this success the group would be quick to say they are a very ordinary bunch of writers who simply decided to take matters into their own hands and to forge their own path along the publishing highway. And if they can do it, it follows so can any other group if they are determined enough.
