history of the wednesday writers
The First meeting of the Todmorden Writers' Group as was, took place upstairs in a quiet room of the Tenth Muse Café and Bar on a cold October night back in 2007. There were only four members at that meeting.
Fourteen years later and the Wednesday Writers have a mailing list of 50 members, a highly successful, regular open mic evening, a loyal core of community based writers, a trusted place on the town's Book Festival Committee and has produced eleven anthologies (available from the book page). Here are some key moments in our writing journey.
Early Days 07 -10
'still Jim' glimpsed occasionally like a dust mote
caught in sunlight or a half-remembered tune
with title lost, brought false hope
and memories of him whole and well
'safe home now' he'd say. 'Ring when you get back.'
Still Jim
Christine Potter
In my darkened classroom before last bell,
Thirty pairs of eyes gaze, held fast in a tomb.
Lost in lovers' last words, we hold our breath,
Hearts tethered to iambic rhythm
Watching Romeo and Juliet
Shura Price
Wednesday Writers 10 - 16
Your house now three flats, sheer white
filling the doorframe sometimes you would kiss.
Grey bars on windows but the sash slides
beneath them; you throw down the keys.
Sky-filled call for prayer, breathing in
your scent deeply in a dark that burns.
Settles Street in Whitechapel
John Clarke
This wasn't the boy she picked blackberries with
or the one so heavy he could not keep up
across the fields on foot or bicycle,
or the neighbour's son she learned to
catch butterflies with but didn't like
what happened later with pins.
This Wasn't the Boy She Picked Blackberries With
Laura Barnes
Celebrations & Festivals 17-21
The Girl at the End of the World
listens through tear-sealed mask
for a static catch of laughter,
but knows that the now is long past
and the never is now ever-after.
The Girl at the End of the World
Andy Fraser
It waited.
It was always waiting, sat in its greasepaint and period costume that itched at the neck; not so much as to be unbearable but a constant reminder that this wasn't right. Wasn't real.
It lived, there. In stasis behind the wall of old velvet waiting for the spotlights to flame into existence once more.
Props
Ginny Ratcliffe
14 Years And Counting
The Wednesday Writers are over a decade old and what do we have to show for all those pints and paper?
A hugely popular monthly Open Mic night in Todmorden. Click here to find out more.
We've won competitions at local, national and even international level (well, hono[u]rable mention!)
11 books of collected short stories and poems available to buy at all good online bookshops under our Wednesday Writer name.
Guerilla Poetry appearing in shop windows around town? That was us! Read our poems about Calderdale and Books for the businesses of Todmorden here.
Guerilla Poetry
From time to time we've taken it upon ourselves to plaster our little town with poems. We find shops and businesses are generally happy to put them up in their windows and folk are happy enough to read them. Here are a selection we wrote about the impact books have had on us, they were written for the Todmorden Book Festival in 2018.
