The results of the annual short story competition will be announced at this meeting.  This is always an exciting event and a rare chance to listen to the creme de la creme of our members' writing.  This year Dr Trudi Tate will act as judge, she will have read all entries and decided which are worthy of the first, second and third prize.  As an accomplished writer and academic she is more than well placed to evaluate the quality, style and originality of writing and we look forward to hearing her analysis and critique.  She will announce the winners, invite them to read their stories to the audience and award prizes.  The evening is friendly, competitive and always inspirational.

The AGM is when all members of Cambridge Writers can learn what the committee's been up to on their behalf during the past year and vote on ideas for the future.  It's also an opportunity to raise suggestions for improving the service we provide to the membership. The committee functions largely by e-mail, meeting together only 3 or 4 times per year and each member takes on one job so nobody is overburdened. Unfortunately, for personal reasons, our secretary and publicity officer will both be standing down after the AGM.  If you think you could help in either capacity or would like to know more about what is involved please contact Helen Culnane (MHC456@tiscali.co.uk).

The aim is to keep AGM business brisk and to the point before, in honour of the Olympic year, we hold our own Writing Olympics.  As with all sports, it's the participating that counts but gold medals will be awarded in word games such as word ping-pong, long sentencing and the writing relay race.

Having had a rewarding career in the Power Supply Industry and after a brief stint with the National Trust,  Jon turned to full time writing. The author of six novels, he also writes poetry, short stories and book reviews.

Leslie Tate is a contemporary author and poet based in the UK. His first novel 'Aphrodite's Children' was published in 2009. Leslie has just completed his second novel called Frontliners which deals with urban relationships in the 80s/90s.

Cressida Downing has over 20 years of experience in publishing and bookselling, from the manuscript to the finished book.

Her freelance clients have included Reader's Digest, a variety of agents, publishers and literary scouts, and aspiring authors. In recent years, she has focused on blogging (writing for www.writersandartists.co.uk), running workshops for writers, and giving advice to bloggers who are interested in breaking into mainstream publishing.

A passionate reader, she lives in a village north of Cambridge and enjoys the local writing scene.

After nearly forty years in the teaching profession, Sylvia has retired to concentrate on writing full time. Sylvie has had some success with her first published book, 'The Bubble.' The second published book called 'Home to Roost' is a very readable family saga set in East Anglia. She has also had several short stories published in a Cambridgeshire magazine. Her third novel, 'Starting Out,' is complete and will be published in 2012. She is currently working on a history of the village of Swaffham Prior where she grew up. Sylvia lives in East Anglia.

Come and learn the latest about this new method of publishing. A panel of members will share their experiences to be followed by a Q and A session.

Rosemary read law at Churchill College, practised as a solicitor in London and raised  three children. in 2005 Dublin's Wolfhound Press published her ghost novel for 10-14 year olds What You See Is What You Get.  The Most Intimate Place followed in 2009 (Maia Press) and was described in the Guardian as 'A gripping, plausible and beautifully written literary thriller’. Rosemary has also written drama, collections of humour and in November 2010 her collection of short poems, Sweet Seventeens.

Tim Love will lead a workshop whose exercises will focus on first on single words, then the art of writing sentences (Austen, James, etc), and finally micro-fiction. He's had many stories published, some of which will appear in his story pamphlet "By All Means" (Nine Arches Press) later this year.

A leading figure at the interface between science and literature, Gillian Beer is former President of Clare Hall College in Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature. She has been twice a judge for the Booker Prize, the second time as chair.

Among her books are Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1983), Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter (1996) and Virginia Woolf: the Common Ground (1996).