Individually, our writing is extremely varied. Some members concentrate on poetry, others are in the process of writing novels. Most also write short stories, articles and verse. Our first anthology, Shooting the Past, published in 2002, came second in The Writers’ News competition. We have since published two further anthologies, both even better than the first. They are The Video Room and Tango, and we are now working on our fourth anthology. Several of our members have also had work published individually.

We give public performances and readings of some of our poems and short stories whenever asked, and these are always very well received.

Our latest public performance was at Southwell Arts Centre, when we combined with three other groups in the area, to give an evening of varied and delightful entertainment. The booklet we had produced and from which the readings were taken, was sold on that evening with the proceeds going to Oxfam to help increase education and skills in Africa.

The Lowdham group melds together well and benefits from the appreciation, constructive criticism and advice offered at our meetings, which are held on the second Tuesday in every month at 7.30pm in the Methodist Hall in Lowdham.

We believe in constructive criticism only. Most members of the group are also fairly new to writing, and so, having recently been laid open to the comments of others, are aware of the courage it takes to put work before an audience for the first time.

We like to help and encourage members to get their work published, with the ambition of reaching as wide an audience as possible, and as published authors are often required to talk about their work and to read extracts from their books, we also encourage our writers to take part in performance readings at every opportunity.