News

Grantham Writers meet on the third Monday of the month from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. From Monday 18th December the group will meet at the Riverside Development in the north east corner of Welham Street, NG31 6QS. It’s a short walk from the previous location, which was on the other side of the junction with Avenue Road and Stonebridge Road.

It’s free to attend the group now and the new venue is free of charge to use for the community.

Founding group member Peter Clawson has arranged the new venue and will be there on 18th December to give a warm welcome with some warm mince pies for a festive celebration. Writers are asked to come along with any of their own creative writing on a Christmas or Winter Theme.

30th Birthday and Flash Fiction Prizes

Grantham Writers mark anniversary with celebratory cake

A group of writers have celebrated their anniversary with a cake and competitions.

On Saturday (October 16) the Grantham Writers marked their 30th anniversary with the celebratory cake and a Flash Fiction Competition.

The competition entries were judged by the Reverend James Farley. The entries were up to 300 words on the subject of The Iron Lady.

Rev James Farley and winner Sarah Tarlow (52362898)

Sarah Tarlow was awarded first place and a prize of £100, followed by Sheila Barker in second place.

Valerie Odell won the Eric Chappell Cup for the best entry by a current member of the Grantham Writers Group.

The £20 book token was won by Jim Gleed of King’s School, who had the best entry by a young person under 19.

Rev James Farley presenting Valerie Odell, vice chairman of Grantham Writers Group, with the Eric Chappell cup 2021 (52362883)

Founding member of the Grantham Writers Group Peter Clawson with chairman and treasurer, Lisa Geary (52362873)

The Grantham Writers Group celebrates its 30th anniversary this month and will be holding an event at The Grantham Museum, St Peter’s Hill on Saturday 16th October from 11am to 1pm.

At 11.30am a celebration cake will be cut by one of the founder members of the group.

At 12 noon winners of the flash fiction competition The Iron Lady will be announced by the judge The Reverend James Farley and prizes will be awarded. There will then be time for the entrants to read out their entries for everyone to appreciate.

Photos from the event

Sarah Tarlow’s winning story is here.

Grantham Journal first reported the plan for the 30th birthday and flash fiction competition in February 2021: writers group celebrate anniversary with fiction competition

Grantham Writers is launching its second annual book festival this November, following the success of last year’s inaugural event.

Grantham Book Festival 2018 will be held at Grantham Museum on St Peter’s Hill on November 3rd from 10am until 4pm.

New for this year is a poetry slam, where participants will be able to compete for the cash prize of £100. The competition will be hosted by multi award winning poet Sue Gerrard alongside Peter Clawson, one of the founding members of Grantham Writers. There will be a small charge of £3 per poem (with a maximum of three entries per person) and the group is keen to encourage writers of all ages and abilities, from across the East Midlands, to take part.

Visitors to the book festival will also be able to enjoy six talks from local authors, who will be reading extracts from their books, answering questions and carrying out book signings throughout the day.

Confirmed authors include Lisa J Rivers who has published a number of books, including popular poetry collection Why I have so Many Cats?, as well as Grantham Writers own Riis Marshall. Riis is currently working on the follow up to his first published novel – a political thriller called Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Die, which follows the adventures of Os Doran, a Close Protection Security Consultant.

In addition, there will be 24 stalls, selling a wide variety of books and some gifts.

Peter Clawson said, “We are thrilled to be holding our second annual book festival and are in the process of getting a great line up of authors involved. The event will be a fantastic way to celebrate the local writing talent that we have in and around Grantham, as well as provide a platform to encourage and inspire more writers in the area to share their work.”

Grantham Book Festival 2018 – postcard (PDF)

.. for the Monday evening meetings anyway.

Grantham Senior Citizens’ Club,
Welham Hall,
Welham Street,
Grantham
NG31 6QU

It’s close to the multi-story Welham Street Car Park, near the junction with St Catherine’s Road, and not far from our old venue of the Grantham Museum.

• There is full disabled access
• Parking: after 6pm, there is free parking right outside on the street and on the ground floor of the car park. (The upper floors of the car park are closed in the evenings.)
• Refreshments: mugs and hot water will be provided. We’ll need to bring our own tea, coffee, milk, etc

Meetings remain 7:30pm – 9:30pm on the third Monday of every month.

The Saturday morning meetings will continue to be held in the Museum’s café, 10:30am – 11:30am on most Saturdays.

Hope to see you at one of our meetings soon.