We have five groups which meet monthly in members' houses. Work is read aloud and sometimes copies are distributed. Members try to give each other constructive criticism and make suggestions as to how texts could be improved.
Free Sample: before we ask you to join, you are welcome to attend two meetings of any writing group to see if what we do interests you.
The poetry group meets on the second Monday of each month. 3-13 people attend. Some of us are unpublished and are happy that way, but I think it’s true to say the tone is “professional” rather than academic or therapeutic. The format is pretty standard. The poet hands the work out. After having given people time to read it, the poet reads it. Then all but the poet discuss it. Finally the poet joins in.
As you will appreciate, poetry needs the very closest attention to the text and this is hard to do if one can only listen. Therefore, at these meetings we ask that you bring along 8 copies of the poem you wish to be considered.
Short stories and short fiction and non-fiction are read at this group. Although we would not wish this criterion to dictate the length of pieces, we usually ask that work substantially over 2000 words be read over two meetings. It helps if you bring 8 printed copies of your work to the meetings for other members to refer to.
Meetings are confirmed to be on the third Thursday of each month.
Those wishing to attend the Long Prose Group (novels, biographies, etc) are encouraged to read out their own original work. Due to the popularity of the group and the time constraints, roughly two minutes are allowed to introduce your piece, followed by about 10 minutes reading, and then the group aims to give about 10 minutes constructive feedback on it. Participants are also encouraged to contribute to constructive feedback on other members’ work. It helps if you bring 8 printed copies of your work to the meetings for other members to refer to.
Meetings are on the last Tuesday of each month. In order to prevent numbers becoming unwieldy in this group, more than one meeting may be arranged at different venues.
There are currently five members who work on travel narratives and who meet once a month.
Some Cambridge Writers who have already published or self-published novels have set up a sub long prose group, for want of a better descriptor called the Commercial Editing Group. All in the group are near to completing and submitting a new novel. The purpose of the monthly meetings is to get to know characters and plots to maximise the level of critical friend feedback, to offer peer review, and to support the editing process.
