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Report from the meeting of 7th July 2026 by Piers Rowlandson.

Stephen Bullas was in the chair. Eight members attended; there were two apologies. The total number of members is now seventeen.

We began the meeting by tying up some unfinished business from the last meeting, where we talked about a group outing, among other things. I sent out an email asking members three questions.

Would people like to man a stall at Midhurst? Five people answered, and four wanted to go. Of the three possible dates, 31st October, the Autumn Market, suited everyone. The Market is held in the Old Library, Knockhundred Row. The cost of the table is £15. Public liability insurance for the group has to be arranged, and I have contacted Hiscox. People were not keen on a card machine as they often fail if there is a poor signal, so the options are cash or bank transfer. Time 9am to 2pm. Free coffee and biscuits.
Would people like to go backstage at the CFT? Five answered, and three wanted to go.
Would people like to go to the Cathedral Library? Three answered, and two wanted to go.

My feeling is that if people want to go to the CFT or the Cathedral, they can organise it for themselves.

Sharon Hurr has invited Peter Crawley, novelist, to our meeting in September to discuss his novels. He has written at least eight. The latest is Theo's Voice. My favourite is Constant Tides. His excellent website is at https://www.peter-crawley.com

I have not heard from Bradley Smith at St Olaves Christian Book Shop. Barbara will speak to him.

Stephen said he would ask his friend John Rowe, who has published a book of one-word poems, to come and talk with us about his poems in the Autumn.

The group had been tasked by Stephen to write a 300-word micro-fiction, time-shift piece about a dodecahedron. He read out a short prose poem by John.

Ten people had submitted ten very different pieces.

Barbara read out a longer piece called "A Fairy Tale for Adults" about birds discussing end-of-life questions about such things as DNR.

Steven read out a piece from his Roman novel where the characters find a dodecahedron, and it seems to foretell doom. He told us 133 had been found in Northern Europe (33 in the UK) but none in Italy.

Sharon read a piece about a time shift that occurred in Bold Street, Liverpool, where such things are commonly witnessed. A boy stole flowers from a shop for his girl and escaped in a puff of smoke into another time.

I read a piece about Alice in her Dig It All Up Tent discussing a dodecahedron with another professor. The dodecahedron transports her back to another time and she is carried off by Vikings who use the thing as an instrument for navigation.

Lynn sent in a piece titled "Dodecahedron Platonic Solids. It's the Cosmos" where a dodecahedron, with a lot of other things, transported her in time from her garden to a beach where she appeared as a small girl.

Daniela read her piece where a load of experts gathered to inspect and speculate about a dodecahedron, only to be outdone by a child who announced it was her toy.

Lesley read "Candlelight" about Carla, who lit a candle and placed it in a dodecahedron and seemed to gain the strength to reject Darren, who might have been about to propose.

Nicky read her piece called "The Melody of a Metal Detectorist" about finding one that seemed to have magic properties.

It would be most helpful if members could upload their work to the Chat Room, ideally before the meeting.

Report from the meeting of 2nd June 2026

Chair: Piers Rowlandson.

There were six members present and we welcomed two guests. Apologies from Steve and Janet. Johnathan described his experiences on the MA course at Chichester Uni. He seems to be enjoying it. It is an excellent course and very practical.

We started the meeting by tying up loose ends from the last meeting:

We are going to invite Bradley Smith from St Olav's Christian Book Shop to a meeting. He will give a short talk followed by a discussion about marketing.

We decided not to invite Nicola Garrard back but instead, Sharon will ask Peter Crawley, Novelist, to come and discuss writing.

There are three possible dates to go to Midhurst to take a stall to sell our books. 1st August. Summer Market. 29th August Street Party. 31st October Autumn Market. A stall inside costs £15, outside in the Square £25. Anyone wishing to take part will need to get a market traders licience and insurance. Parking is available a short walk away off Bepton Road.

I have sent round an email asking members if they would like to go Backstage at CFT and/or visit the Library at Chichester Cathedral.

******-§-******

Piers then read out a passage from ALEX, which ties up Chapter Three (available in the CHAT room) with the death of her pony and her stay in hospital, leading to her giving up riding and taking up dinghy sailing in Chichester Harbour.

Johnathan read out a passage from Chapter Nine of his novel set in an imaginary world, 6000 BC, after a cataclysmic flood. Vivid scenes of the rites leading up to a funeral and the cremation of the body.

Lynn (guest) then read a piece from her novel, which tells the tale of a dog saving the world from selfishness that is causing pollution, helped by magic creatures: a tiger and a dragon. The novel contains poetic descriptions of East Head.

Excellent tea and apple pie at halftime.

Review of the Meeting of 5th May 2026 by Piers Rowlandson.

Nine members were present and Lesley Pardoe was in the chair.

Apologies from Johnathan and Neill.

The meeting was slow to get going, so while we waited, Lesley and Janet discussed the merits of the MA in Creative Writing that Chichester offers. Johnathan and Christian are taking it at present. It involves a lot of work! Plenty of writing, which is then critiqued in a most helpful way and in great detail. We went on to discuss viewpoint.

Sharon reminded us that there is a Summer Market in Midhurst on 1st August and a Street Party on 29th August. This is a chance for CWC members to sell their books. A stall costs £15 or £25, depending on whether it is inside or outside.

Barbara asked if anyone was interested in visiting the Cathedral Library, going backstage at CFT or hearing from the owner of the Christian Book Shop. No decision was made.

Lesley led a lively discussion about names. Names have meaning and associations for the reader and it is as well to bear this in mind when choosing a name. David Lodge has a chapter on choosing names in The Art of Fiction. Names come and go in terms of what's fashionable. If one is writing a story set in Wales, Lesley suggested a range of names and if the story is set in Mediaeval times, there are some wonderful names to choose from. In China and indeed in England, it was a census of the people that provided an impetus to the use of family and clan names. Doomsday Book is an example. Later trades gave rise to family names like Gardener or Butcher. Avoid names like Annette Curtin or Justin Time!

I have added Lesley's notes to the Chat Room.

Review of Meeting 7th April 2026 by Piers Rowlandson

Nicky was in the chair. The meeting was attended by seven other members and two guests. Apologies from Lesley and Anna.

AGM

Nicky presented the accounts: the main source of income is the membership fees: £347.50 last year and the main expenditure is the room hire: £300 last year. We have £473.37 in the bank, largely as a result of not paying for the room hire during COVID.

We then moved on to the next item on the agenda.

Rotating Chair.

The general feeling is that this is working well. Members are welcome to come forward if they would like to join the rota. It would help if the chairs let Piers know what is to be discussed in advance of the meetings so that he can put it up on the website.

Update on the website.

The website is a success since it draws in new members (two this evening). However, members do not use it much. The Chat Room is set up so that members can put up pieces they have written. Unlike the pieces read out at meetings, these offerings can be much longer; whole chapters, for example, which helps put in context the short pieces when they are read out. Ian, who is in charge of the website, is going to make it easier to comment on submissions.

Invited Speakers.

The feeling is that invited speakers can be inspiring, and we should invite one or two a year. They often expect to be offered payment, if only for expenses. We thought a budget of £50 was reasonable. Any member can suggest a speaker and invite them, but if they are going to cost more than £50, then that should be discussed at a meeting first.

Competitions.

In the past, we have had competitions between members, often pieces of writing done on the spot or sometimes in advance. People seemed to prefer the idea of the chair of some future meeting, setting an exercise to illustrate a point, or some aspect of fiction that we could discuss in the second half of the meeting.

The John Murray Cup.

Piers read out his review of Leopard by Christian Johannson, who was then awarded the Cup for a really excellent first novel. Leopard is a psychological crime drama, which, after a near-disaster with a vanity publisher, he self-published using KDP.

There followed an enlightening discussion about self-publishing. Formatting is one aspect that people find difficult. For that reason alone, I recommend SCRIVENER. Vanity publishers are to be avoided. They may cost anything up to £2000 or more, and the results can be disappointing. Some keep the costs hidden until it comes to the printing, and then demand large sums of money.

After tea, a guest, Jamie, read out 1500 words from the opening chapter of his book about growing up on an estate somewhere in London. A group of nine-year-old boys and their BMX bikes are out messing about. The banter between the boys and their reference to their home lives was brilliantly done. We look forward to more of this. Nadia, another guest, showed us her book of drawings and writings, which she intends to publish. Sharon read out a short and very amusing piece entitled "The Art of Gift Giving" about a tub of hand cream that did the rounds for a whole year before being binned by a bus driver. I read out 1000 words from a chapter of my novella "Alex", where she goes out hunting and has a fall. It was well received with kind comments.

Lesley is in the chair in May. See forthcoming events and meetings for what is planned.

Review of Meeting 3rd March 2026 by Piers Rowlandson.

Johnathan Kaye was in the Chair.

Eleven members were present and there were three apologies.

We welcomed Roger Morris, who had been invited to discuss his latest novel, Cover Story. For Roger's impressive bio, see Forthcoming Meetings for 3rd March.

Roger entertained us for almost two hours, with a break for tea and biscuits. He started writing stories while still at school; it was a habit he got into and dreamed that one day he would be a recognised author of fiction. In the meantime, he was an advertising copywriter. He also wrote scripts for an award-winning audio production company, working on true crime and history podcasts including Deathbed Confessions, Scotland Yard Confidential, Detectives Don’t Sleep and The Curious History of your Home, as well as a forthcoming series on the Vikings.

By the age of 42, he had submitted so many manuscripts that had been rejected that he was already known to editors and his agent was told by one editor that he didn't want to read manuscripts from Roger Morris anymore. Then he changed tack and wrote A Gentle Axe. This is a murder mystery set in 19th centuary St Petersburg. The lead investigator is a character taken from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Roger exactly captures the atmosphere of the city of St. Petersburg without ever having been there. After the first novel was published, Faber and Faber offered him a contract for a series of four novels and he did visit St. Petersburg and make friends with a Russian who showed him round. He immediately felt at home.

Cover Story is a very different novel about a failing writer, Col, living in North London in such desperate circumstances that he is sharing student digs with two boys and a girl half his age. A friend from university, who claims to be working for MI6, offers him a lot of money to write a novel. At first, he cannot get going and then the mother of the girl in his digs tells him about her failed marriage and his imagination is fired up. Unfortunately, when the woman starts an affair with him, she finds out that he has used her story in the novel, and there is a big falling out. One of the boys in the house falls under a truck and is killed in a hit-and-run accident. It seems he may have been murdered by MI6 because of what Col has told him. Then it turns out that another novel that Col wrote has been stolen by a celebrated but crooked author.

There was plenty to talk about. We discussed how we use things from life to inform our own work. The story, as told by Col, is confused and confusing. We mentioned the technique of the unreliable narrator that some writers use. We went on to discuss the difficulties of getting an agent and then the further difficulties that writers have had when the agent tries to persuade the writer to alter their work, only to have it altered again by an editor. After the book is published, most people have found that the author is expected to do a lot of the marketing, even though Faber and Faber has a marketing director.

It was an excellent and entertaining evening.

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