Bognor Regis Write Club celebrates its 10th aniversary

Julia Macfarlane, the co-ordinator for Bognor Regis’s writing group, nearly missed the anniversary. By chance, last month, she realised Page 1 of her records book showed the first meeting had been 10 years ago in October 2013. “Luckily, I discovered the news in time for us to have a small celebration at our October meeting with cake and candles.”
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Appropriately enough, ten members turned up to blow out the candles. The group has met in a variety of places over the 10 years: The Royal Hotel, The Waverley, people’s homes and even Zoom during the Covid lockdowns. Their current meeting place is the Regis School of Music and they advertise their monthly meetings on Meet-up and Facebook.

The membership is restricted to 25 maximum and they are quite active between meetings: emailing each other feedback on current works in progress, advising each other of events, competitions and publishing opportunities. Current members include poets, script-writers, novelists and short story writers. ‘Reading out a script is always fun, especially as a few of us insist on doing the voices!’

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During their time, they have produced four anthologies and the Chichester Ghost Tour. Several volumes have been penned by individual authors and successfully published. New members are welcome but they have to have had some experience of writing fiction or poetry, even if they haven’t achieved publishing success yet.

Bognor Regis Write Club celebrate their 10th birthdayBognor Regis Write Club celebrate their 10th birthday
Bognor Regis Write Club celebrate their 10th birthday

“The stories I could tell about some of the writers who have joined us – current and past, funny and sad, and sometimes very eccentric. At one meeting we even had a guy who wrote songs so he sang rather than reading out. We all expected to sit there, cringing with embarrassment, but he had a wonderful voice. It was a magical experience. There’s a book in there somewhere! I am very much looking forward to seeing who and what the next few years bring our friendly and skilled group.”

Enquiries should be sent to [email protected].

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