Celebrating the launch of the Greenacre Writers Anthology

Sometimes we get so busy we forget the important things in life, like celebrating an achievement or special day. Yesterday the Greenacre Writers celebrated the publication of our second volume of short stories. The anthology includes the six winning stories from our short story competition last year and thirteen Greenacre Writers publishing short stories and poems.

Me reading Fallen Women from the anthology with my community gossips, Josie Pearse, Liz Goes and June Armstrong-Wright.

The short story is about the child of an umarried mother from the late fifties. A time when women were quite literally booted out of their homes and forced to give their children up for adoption. The community would gossip about these women, thankful it wasn't them who were pregnant. The child, now a grown-up mother herself is visiting her grandmother for the first time.

Liz Goes, had us all chuckling with her feline yarn, A Caerphilly Crime, the Welsh accent was pretty good too.



Here you can see Amy Flinders, one of the competition winners, who was able to attend the launch to receive her prize a copy of the anthology. On the right is Josie O Pearse.

Josie's story, Three Piggies and an Eco Warrior, re-tells the story of the three little piggies, transformed here to female piggies looking for husbands. They build their houses out of self-help books, Argos catalogues, Yellow pages as well as bricks. When the wolves come-a-hunting, the fun begins.

Linda Louisa Dell reading her story, A Cautionary Spirit, about a ghost that forwarns disaster.
 

Lindsay Bamfield, reading her moving tale, Chocalate in Summer. When the mother-in-law comes to stay, the summer becomes hell. And when tragedy strikes, well you'll have to buy the anthology to find out what happened.
 

Mark Kitchenham not only didn't know he was reading but this is also his first time reading in front of an audience. His tale, Bea and Me has a twist in the tale.
 

June Armstrong-Wright gave a wonderful performance of a short story, not Trophies, the one in the anthology, a very clever piece of writing with a superb sting in ending.
 

Other Greenacre Writers who read were, Anna Meryt, our only poet, who has written some hilarious poems as well as very moving ones. Ruth Cohen whose sexy short story, The Way to a Man's Heart had everyone wanting more. And finally, Katie Alford, who also gave her first public story with her fantasy short story, A Creeping Corruption.



Helen Michaels is on the right

As this was a celebrity afternoon, I also took the opportunity to hand out some of my World Book Night books: Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson. World Book Night is a celebration of reading and books which sees tens of thousands of passionate volunteers gift specially chosen and printed books in their communities to share their love of reading. World Book Night was celebrated on April 23 - I'm still celebrating!  

World Book Night is about giving books and encouraging reading in those who don’t regularly do so. But it is also about more than that: it’s about people, communities and connections, about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest of ways, through the sharing of stories.

And this is what we were doing yesterday afternoon, sharing and celebrating our stories. It was a lovely afternoon, made especially welcoming by the hospitality of Helen Michael, the proprietor of Cafe Buzz. Her food is delicious and when she tweets @buzzinghelen, about the cafe, the mixtures and recipes often have a sensual element. We think she should join Greenacre Writers!

To enter this year's Greenacre Writers Short Story Competition or buy a copy of the anthology, go to Greenacre Writers