December 2006

Commiserations to those of you who missed our Christmas party on December 11th. Our principle guest was Jenny Morris launching her collection "Lunatic Moon". Jenny is a long-standing member and supporter of Cafe Writers and we were delighted to be able to host her launch. Her collection is also the debut publication by The Gatehouse Press

Lured by mince pies, Norwich writers emerged from their cells in numbers unprecedented in recent times (around 75) to attend. Over 20 mini-stories were submitted to the harsh and random criticism of our "X-Factor" panel, who were heckled and booed in turn, all in good spirits of course. John Vaughan was the worthy winner, and went home with a bottle of champagne. You can read his story and a few of the others on the "Poem of the Month" page.

Many thanks to all that have submitted to our 2006 Short Story prize. We have over 80 entries, and may need a little while to distil these down to a number that we can reasonably expect our adjudicator, Sarah Bower, to read. Be assured that all entries will be read by more than one person, and that author's names will not be seen by short-listers or the adjudicator. Our procedure is described in more detail in our protocol.

We have now been meeting at Jurnet's Bar for a full year. Looking down this page, I also see that I started keeping a record of our activities here exactly three years ago in January 2004.

Wishing you all the best in 2007.

November 2006

Our meeting on the 13th November was a joint event with East Anglian Writers, and we were pleased to welcome Tessa West, John Worrall, Will Stone and David Cobb. 
The readings were preceded by a brief business meeting (AGM) at which some important changes to the Cafe Writers constitution were proposed and accepted. (See "Constitution"). There was also a financial report from Martin Figura (Treasurer) and a review of the year from Mike O'Driscoll (Co-ordinator). We had an audience of around 40 for this meeting.

October 2006

On the 14th October, Cafe Writers staged is largest event to date: an evening with Jackie Kay and Matthew Sweeney, supported by local rap artists Paris and Pascal. To accommodate a larger audience, we moved to The Garage on Chapelfield North, and for a number of reasons we also held the event on a Saturday. Simon Proctor, The EDP's correspondent gave us the following review:

Café Writers goes from strength to strength. The Norwich-based group was founded six years ago by Tom Corbett but has only this year received any funding - a £5,000 Awards for All grant.
Saturday night saw a switch of venue from its home at Jurnet's Bar, Wensum Lodge, to The Garage, Chapelfield North, to accommodate a larger audience for two of the poetry scene's leading lights.
Kay, born in Edinburgh to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, was adopted by a white couple at birth and brought up in Glasgow.
Her work explored themes of identity and love, by turns witty and moving and never more so than in her account of meeting her born-again Christian birth father who, she realised, regarded her as "my past sin".
Kay's victory is in the perspective she has on the experience, concluding: "I think he had my hands, my father."
The poems were interspersed with links of pure stand-up - hilarious and warmly engaging.
Sweeney, born in Donegal, is a narrative poet whose stories - often with a surreal edge, sometimes darkly so - achieve a hard-won lyricism that is never cloying. In one, a group of friends play poker beside the coffin of a dead uncle; in another, a sweat mark on a T-shirt during a hot summer in Romania reminds the poet of the map of Ireland.
One of his strongest poems, A Dream of Honey, conjures a world where bees are extinct. Inspired by a trip to Riga, Latvia, where the main market is housed in old Zeppelin hangars, the poem is a beautifully fashioned, modern folk tale.
Both poets had held workshops during the day - one for young writers, which Café Writers organised as part of a community development brief that followed the award of its grant.
Indeed, supporting Kay and Sweeney in the evening were two young poets, Paris and Pascal, whose 'slam' style offered up a string of streetwise, strongly rhythmic poems - one neatly subverting rap's association with violence by imagining guns that fire bullets of knowledge.

Apologies to anyone who experienced difficulties or incorrect information when buying tickets for the event. Thanks to those who came - the event was sold out with an audience of over a hundred, which is quite unusual for a poetry evening.

September 2006

Our guests for the first meeting of the new season were Ann Berkeley and Peter Howard. Their readings were themed to reflect science in poetry, as the event coincided with British Association Festival of Science Week. We had an audience of around 45 and we seem to have overcome the problems with the PA system. 

Congratulations to Martin Figura, winner of the 2006 poetry competition and to the commended entrants. Also thanks to Jacob Polley (Adjudicator), Juliet Corbet (Competition Administrator) and everyone who entered. Please look at the Competitions page for the full results.

August 2006

On Sunday August 6th, Cafe Writers hosted an afternoon of poetry and prose readings in Chapelfield Gardens, central Norwich. Our last attempt at an outdoor event in June 2005 was a bone-chilling experience, but for Poetry in the Park the sun shone - not too much - and the rain held off. The event ran from 2.30 to 5.00 and we had an audience of around 75, and a total of 25 readers. Amongst the audience were many new faces and also some members who have been unable to come on Monday evenings, and who we haven't seen for some time. All in all, we consider the venture a success and would like to thank Norwich City Council for lending us their bandstand and Mike O'Driscoll, without whose enthusiasm and work the event would never have taken place.

I was away in July, and unable to come and hear Helen Ivory and Ian Marriott

There have been some postal problems with the Cafe Writers poetry competition. Apparently packets sent by recorded delivery to persons who are away from home get sent to Belfast and held there for weeks as punishment. Happily, Jacob Polley has now received the entries, and his adjudication will be announced very soon.

We have a special event arranged for Saturday October 14th at The Garage, Chapelfield North, Norwich with guests Jackie Kay, Matthew Sweeney and Paris and Pascal. This event is part of the Black History Month programme, and has received some funding assistance from Norfolk County Council. However, to meet the speakers expenses and pay for The Garage, we will be admitting by ticket only, £3.00 in advance or £4.00 on the door.

June 2006

Despite warm weather and the World Cup, we had an audience of over forty to hear Michael Laskey and Jenny Morris at our meeting in Jurnett's Bar on June 12th. 

A few last-minute entries to the 2006 Cafe Writers Poetry Competition were handed in on the 12th, but no further entries can be accepted. Many thanks for all your poems, which are now with Jacob Polley for adjudication, and the results will be announced at Cafe Writers on July 10th. I will have the results on the website, together with winning poems by the end of the month.

May 2006

Our excellent 2006 programme continued in May with guests Tamar Yoseloff and Sarah Passingham. Tamar read poems from her collection Barnard's Star together with new work, and Sarah read an extract from her biography-in-progress The Inconsequence of Walking, and a short story on a similar theme.

If you have not been to Cafe Writers since our move to Jurnet's Bar in December, I do urge you to come along in June or July to see what you have been missing. We now have a very atmospheric setting (with parking and disabled access), an excellent programme of visiting readers and a PA system that will ensure you don't miss a word.

April 2006

Our guests in April were Chris Kinsey and Hilary Mellon, and I hear the meeting was a great success, but sadly was unable to attend myself.

March 2006

Guests for this meeting were Dean Parkin, Linh Dinh and Virgil Renfroe. It's unusual for CW to have three guests, and our meeting ran a little later than usual. The audience was again around 55 - 60, with a number of new faces.

As you will know, if you have been coming, we are now passing round the hat and asking for a donation toward expenses (Suggested: £2.00). Many thanks to all have been contributing. Your money goes towards the main guest's travel expenses, and towards CW's new P.A system.

February 2006

Our guests on February 13th were Jacob Polley and Sarah Hall. As in January, the audience was around 55 people, a comfortable number for the venue.

January 2006

Our guests were Esther Morgan, who read from her first and second collections, Beyond Calling Distance and The Silence Living in Houses, together with Cafe Writers regular Anne Osborne and participants from the pilot Science in Writing Project. (See photo gallery).

I'm confident the audience heard every word, as we were using our newly-acquired PA system for the first time. If you have ever struggled to hear readings at a Cafe Writers meeting, I'm sure you will find listening easier in the future.

The 2006 poetry competition is now open to entries. Full details can be found on the Competitions link, on the left of the page.

December 2005

We met for the first time in Jurnet's Bar, Wensum Lodge King Street. For those of you not present or familiar with the Bar, it is in one of the oldest buildings in Norwich, and the room we use has a medieval vaulted ceiling.

Our reader for the evening was our own Martin Figura, who was launching his collection "Ahem", published by Eggbox Press. We had an audience of 60, and this made the room seem fairly full; we could probably manage 70 seated, or 80 with some standing. Festive food was provided by Tom and Juliet with assistance from Cafe Writers funds.

Before the readings, we held a short AGM. The committee was re-elected.

The winner of the 2005 Short Story Competition was Sarah Bower with The Archaeology of Ironing . Sarah was presented with the winner's prize, a cheque for £100, and she read the first part of her story.

During the Open Mike part of the evening, there was quite a high level of background noise from the other part of the bar, which is open to other Wensum Lodge users. We hope to acquire a PA system shortly to make sure our guests can hear the readers.

November 2005

Our guests for our November meeting were several members of East Anglian Writers, and their readings were enjoyed by an audience of around 60. (See photo gallery for EAW guests.)

This was our last meeting in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and we will be meeting in Jurnets Bar at Wensum Lodge, King Street, Norwich - just down the road - on December 12th.  Wensum Lodge has (limited) parking and disabled access and it has been the lack of disabled access in particular at the NewMu that has necessitated our move. 

It is becoming more difficult as time goes by to communicate with members by email. Until recently, I could send an email to all 420 subscribers, but I must now send nine emails each with less than fifty addresses per message to comply with the anti-spam measures of my email provider, Wanadoo. Even then, many recipients mail servers have anti-spam filters that will block my messages to you. I understand that anyone with an UEA address can not now receive my emails, but will have to retrieve them from a quarantine folder on the UEA mail server. For this reason, I will generally be sending only one email per month, usually a few days before our meetings, and I encourage you to look here on the website for information about Cafe Writers activities.

News Page October 2005

We had an audience of around 100 in October for our meeting with guests Andy Mac, Ainsley Burrows and friends. Thanks to them and to Lisa D'Onofrio who organized the Black History Month part of the meeting.

Ben Scott of East Anglian Writers is producing a Regional Literary Events Diary that anyone with an interest in writing will find helpful. See http://www.eastanglianwriters.org.uk/ Thanks Ben, looks like hard work! 

September 2005

Many thanks to Andre Mangeot and Anna Reckin for launching our 2005-6 season with readings at our September 12th meeting. It was good to see old friends as well as new faces in the audience. Please tell any writers you know about Cafe Writers - there's nothing like word of mouth.

Congratulations and best wishes to Martin Figura and Helen Ivory, both CW regulars and committee members, who were married in August.

I have heard from Thea Abbott that Spiked Magazine has ceased publication because of a lack of support funding

Short Story Competition: keep those entries coming!

July 2005

The Cafe Writers Short Story Competition 2005 is now underway. The first prize is £100, entries should be 3000 words or less, the closing date is October 31st 2005 and the adjudicator will be Julia Bell.

Many thanks to Caroline Gilfillan and Yvonne Blomer for reading at our last meeting before the summer break. We look forward to seeing Caroline again next year, and we wish Yvonne best wishes on her return to Canada this month.

The 2005 Poetry Competition winner was Ian Marriott with "Antarctic Winter (2)", and he receives the first prize of £100 and our congratulations. Many thanks to Helen Ivory for adjudicating the competition, and for reading and selecting from over 80 entries. Helen has also chosen eight commended poems. You can access the winning poems from the Home Page.

In September, Norwich is launching the Heritage Open Days, where historic or interesting buildings are open to view for a limited period. The Norwich co-ordinator, Sophie Cabot would be interested to hear from writers who might wish to participate in any way. See www.heritageopendays.org.uk for further information, and contact Sophie sophiecabot@norwich.gov.uk with any suggestions for participation.

June 2005

The weather was not kind to us on June 13th for our Poet's Picnic. This was the first time we have attempted to use the courtyard space around the NewMu for performance. Although the rain held off, the temperatures were more April than June, and after around 40 minutes we retreated inside for the remainder of the evening. Many thanks to George Szirtes, Michael Murphy, Sarah Law, Sam Riviere, Jack Underwood, Martin Figura, Helen Ivory and everyone else who read at or supported the event. Comments ranged from "Great Poetry" to "Long ...... cold ......  hungry ......". Thanks to everyone, see pictures in "Photo Gallery". 

Meanwhile, the Poetry Competition is closed to entries and the results will be announced on July 11th.

May 2005

A record crowd attended our meeting on May 9th to hear Patricia Mullin launch her new novel "Gene Genie" and Sarah O'Hara launch her account of Colin Chapman's Boat Business "Moonraker and JCL Marine Ltd." We think we had an attendance of around 120. 

Send your entries in now for the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2005, closing date 13th June. See Home Page for information.  

See www.newwritingpartnership.org.uk for details of their June event, New Writing Worlds.

April 2005

Our meeting on the 11th April was a great success, with readings from Christine Webb and Emily Dening. We were asked by the owners to meet upstairs rather than in the bar, and (apart from the difficulties of disabled access) managed to create an excellent atmosphere for the evening with audible but unamplified readers and an engaged and responsive audience. Many thanks to all.

The Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2005 is now running, and entries are welcome. After some ambiguity last year, we have decided that our competition should be for residents of East Anglia in the hope that the winners will be able to attend the adjudication and presentation on July 11th, and we will be publicizing the competition in this area only. This year's judge is Helen Ivory, first prize is £100, closing date is June 13th, maximum length is 32 lines and the entry fee is £3.00 for one or £5.00 for two poems. 

Cafe Writers Self-Directed Writing Groups were launched this month, and have been taken up by members with great enthusiasm . A mixed poetry/prose group is meeting on Tuesday evenings, a poetry group on Monday evenings, there are plans for a novel-in progress group, possibly on Thursday mornings and for a Script-writing group on Tuesday evenings. There has also been some interest in memoirs / life writing. The meetings are fortnightly or bi-monthly, and take place at the office in King Street. These groups are in an embryonic state and are in need of additional members. More details about how to take part can be found on the Writing Groups page

March 2005

In view of the difficulties of access in the first floor gallery, Cafe Writers took the decision to hold all meetings in the ground floor bar for the time being, and this is where we met on March 14th. 

The bar has been fitted out with a long central table, improved decor, a coffee machine and a greater range of drinks, and is now open to the public most days until 8.00 pm. I thought the ambience of the meeting was much better, with seats grouped around tables, stray cafe customers who stayed for the readings and coffee machine sound effects at the back. Despite sitting right at the back by the bar, I had no trouble hearing the (unamplified) readers.  If this is still the top entry on the news page when you read it, then you can see some photos of the newly-fitted bar in the Photo Gallery. So, it's the best of both worlds for our meetings, and a big "Thank you" to Andy Gibb for creating and making available such a delightful space. 

Thanks also to our readers Ashley Stokes and Michael Murphy, who made a spontaneous and unannounced visit to Norwich.

February 2005

If anyone was listening to Radio Norfolk on Friday 18th Feb at 3.45, they would have heard Mike O'Driscoll spreading the word about Cafe Writers, and Yvonne Blomer reading her poem "There is no word for husband". Many thanks to both for appearing, if that's the word. We are asked to come on Radio Norfolk from time to time, so if you would like to talk about CW or read on air, please let one of the committee know.

We were upstairs at the NMOCA on Valentine's Day, and every seat was taken for readings by Barbara Watts and Paddy Tarrant. Thanks to both of them, and to the throng of readers from the floor with their romantic verse. 

There's a feeling that we haven't quite got the arrangement of the room right yet, so please bear with us whilst we experiment and make any suggestions you might have. It's easier to organize the meetings without microphones and PA, but the acoustics of the room are a little tricky and it has been a little difficult to hear at the back.

January 2005

A different ambience again for our January meeting, which was held on the lower floor of the gallery at Nether Conesford, (where the bar is.) With an audience of around 35, we were able to dispense with the microphone, which made for a more relaxing evening.

Many thanks to Sarah Law and Helen Ivory for reading from their recent collections.

We're sorry to say that Anna Bentley is leaving the Cafe Writers committee, and would like to thank her for her support and contribution over the last couple of years. 

December 2004 (by Mike O'Driscoll)

I hope you’ll agree that our first meeting in the new venue was a success. We were treated to excellent readings by two great supporters of Café Writers’, George Szirtes and Gary Kissick as well as poetry prize winners Lisa D’Onofrio and Yvonne Blomer.

The venue itself seems a great improvement after our growing problems at the Marzano. The Nether Conesford gallery is a marvellous space, free of salsa dancers and other passing noise and distraction makers. We are very grateful to the owner, Andy Gibb and to The New Writing Partnership for making the move possible. Obviously, the building is not completely finished. There are plans to improve disabled access to the first floor and by January, the bar will be a more permanent set-up.

We would welcome your thoughts, ideas, concerns about the move. You can either post a message on the "Forum" section of the website or email me at mike@cafewriters.org.uk

The buffet afterwards at King’s was also a pleasant occasion. However, only the last minute attendance of some additional members prevented us making a significant loss (in our meagre terms)on the event as several people who put their names down did not turn up on the evening.

Please bear in mind that we have no regular income and are not in a position to carry any losses. We wish to keep Café Writers free to all. What little money we have should be used to promote and support new writing, so all social events have to be self-funding. If you say you are coming please do…or at least send the cheque!

November 2004

Farewell then, at least for the moment, to the Marzano Bar at the Forum. This has been a very vibrant, central location for our meetings, and we will miss the comfort, the convenience, the food and drink on offer and the helpfulness of the Marzano Bar staff. However, as you will know, there have been problems holding our meetings there of late. We have been forced to move from Thursdays to Mondays by the bar pianist; we've competed with late night shopping, camels and ice skating; we had to cancel our guest Fergal Keane in May because of local celebrations; and most recently, we have had to compete regularly with salsa music, dancing and dancers.

Our guests on November 8th, Kings Lynn Writers Circle, UEA MA (Poetry) students and Sue Butler all managed to hold our attention despite the distractions. However, we look forward to trying out a new venue for our next meeting - see the "Next Meeting" page of this site for details. 

October 2004

Venues for our next meetings are:
November 8th:         Marzano Bar at The Forum,Norwich
December 13th        The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Nether Conesford, King St., Norwich

Both dates are Mondays and meetings start at 7.15 pm. There will be more details about the December venue here and in emails to members after the meeting on November 8th. 

Many thanks to The Joy of Six and Ainsley Burrows for their readings on October 13th. We are very lucky to be able to present performers of this quality to Cafe Writers audiences free of charge.  We had another full house for this meeting, with excellent sound c/o Joy of Six's P.A. system, and unopposed by Salsa music for a change.

Apologies to anyone who has come to either or both of the last two meetings hoping to read in an open mike slot. Please come again in November  -  we are planning to restore the balance.

The Cafe Writers Annual Poetry Competition is now closed to entries, and we will announce the winner at our meeting on December 13th. 

We have decided on changes to the Cafe Writers Poem of the Month - please see the Poem of the Month page for details.

September 2004

Our September 13th meeting was attended by around 80 writers, who had come to hear the Creative Arts East Team of Sarah Wingate-Grey, Lisa D'Onofrio and Ann Young, and to hear two of the three winning entries of our inaugural Short Story Competition. 

The evening was one long struggle to hear, and be heard. Although the Salsa group in the adjoining atrium were relatively subdued, the failure of the microphone or PA which we borrow from the Forum meant that readers were entirely unamplified. Apologies to all, especially to anyone who was behind the readers and struggling to hear above the noise made by the cafe fridges.

The Cafe Writers committee are working on ways to overcome this problem. Watch this space.

Many thanks to all who took the trouble to enter our inaugural short story competition. We had around 90 entries, roughly half from our immediate catchment area of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and the rest from further afield. On the strength of this larger-than-expected pool of entries, we decided we could choose a national and a local winner.

The national competition winner is Pat Mitchell from Derbyshire. There are two joint winners from the local pool, Mike O'Driscoll and Andrea Porter. Congratulations to all three. You can read Andrea Porter's story "Table Six"  and Mike O'Driscoll's "Security Measures by following the underlined link on the competition page. I will publish Pat Mitchell's story here when I receive it.

August 2004

On July 12th, our meeting started with contributions from Costessey High School and North Walsham High School, facilitated by the Young Persons Literature Network. The standard of writing and performance was impressive, and we would be very pleased to see these writers again, collectively or individually.

We also had plenty of readings from members on the theme of "Lapsed Anything". 

We turned our performance space around for this meeting, with the microphone in the middle of the room, and performers facing St. Peter Mancroft church. If you have any comments about this you would like to make, please post them on our discussion board. (See "Enter my Forum" above).

We have had over 80 entries for the Cafe Writers Short Story Competition. Thank you to everyone who entered. The winners will be announced at our next meeting on September 13th.  Following the success of this competition we announced the first Annual Cafe Writers Poetry Competition. Poems can be entered from now until October 11th, any length up to 32 lines. George Szirtes will be adjudicating the competition, the first prize will be £50.00, the entry fee is £2.50 and the winner will be announced at our meeting on December 13th.

July 2004

Our meeting on June 12th was again well-attended, with a number of new faces. Our guests were past students (2002-3) of the UEA's diploma in creative writing, Paul Read, Peter Barry, Anna Bentley and myself, Richard Roberts, who read from their course anthology "Geckolectric", along with tutors Sarah Law and Helen Ivory. Anthologies were given to interested members of the audience, and a collection for the Norfolk branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society raised £38.33. Many thanks to all who donated. 
Congratulations and best wishes to Cafe Writers Director Tom Corbett and Juliet Eve, who were married on June 10th. Both at the meeting on the 12th ......................that's dedication!

June 2004

Apologies for long silence. We had another successful meeting on April 11th, despite holding it on a Bank Holiday for the first time. Our theme for the evening was "New Writers", and we had so many new faces keen to read that we were pressed to finish by 9.00. The readers did well to compete with a rather high level of noise from other users of the Marzano Bar, a situation we will have to keep under revue. The problem was not the Salsa class, which seems to pass off fairly quietly at least until 9.30

Our meeting on May 10th with Fergal Keane was cancelled with great regret because of the Norwich City Football Club Promotion Celebrations which took over the city that night.

March 2004

Short Story Competition. At our meeting on March 8th, we announced the Cafe Writers Short Story competition. The competition is open to all for an entry fee of £2.50 and the First Prize is £50. The closing date is Monday 12th July, the maximum length is 2,500 words and the competition will be adjudicated by Peter Tolhurst of Black Dog Publishing. 

Website Message Board. Click on the Enter my Forum link on the side of the page - this will take you to the new Cafe Writers Message Board. The Message Board can be used to comment on our meetings, make suggestions - e.g. for guests, to discuss issues that might be of interest to members (The Writing Partnership?) or for almost anything you like. Go on - post a message!

Meeting Monday March 8th. Our guest were D. J. Taylor and Julia Bell who have contributed to "Line Dancing. Stories from East Anglia", and by Peter Tolhurst, the publisher of the collection. Another very interesting evening with some excellent readings from the floor, and with an attendance of around 65. Peter brought some copies of the book to sell - but ran out! Thanks to all who took part.

A big thank you also to Sarah O'Hara, the Cafe Writers Secretary who is leaving us to live in Holland this month, and to Louise Shaw who has been running the Poem of the Month Competition. We'll miss you both. Juliet is taking over the Poem of the Month, and we would would love to hear from anyone who would like to offer to take on the role of secretary.

February 2004

Cafe Writers received some welcome publicity in February, with Tom Corbett and Mike O'Driscoll talking about our activities to Chris Goreham on Radio Norfolk on February 5th. Two days later, the Norwich Advertiser carried a good feature on our February 9th meeting, "Cafe Slam". 

For "Cafe Slam" we invited the winning teams from the Norfolk Schools Slam poetry competition 2003 to be our guests, and they obliged with some powerful and entertaining readings. The eight guests with friends, parents and teachers helped to bring the numbers present up to around 75, another fullish house. We were also very pleased to welcome Ainsley Burrows, and only regret that Central Trains (or was it Anglia Railways?) caused him to miss so much of the evening. 

We were a little short of readers from the floor for this meeting, so whether you are a regular, an occasional or a first-time visitor to our meetings, please bring along some of your work to read on March 8th. (5 minutes, prose or poetry).

January  2004

I was expecting our meeting on January 12th to be a low-key affair, with post-holiday blues and late email publicity contributing to a low turnout.

In fact, the meeting had a very high buzz-factor, with a turnout of around 80, lots of new faces, 12 or more readers from the floor and an excellent performance from Andre Mangeot. Come early if you want a seat on February 9th!.

Richard
Cafe Writers publicity