Riverside latest

Note from Merseyside's Riverside Writers:

The next meeting of Riverside Writers will take place on August 20th, at 7.30pm-9.30pm in West Kirby Library in The Concourse.
The current group project is to write a poem or short story of any length, set in a service station. Bring along your creative efforts to the next meeting!

For more info, email Adele Cosgrove-Bray at Riversidewriters@aol.com

Crime writers: heads up

Brilliant course being run this autumn/winter by University of Liverpool's continuing education dept: Forensic geoscience...
How smart is that to cite as your Monday evening activity of choice?
Here's the blurb:
"Crime scene investigation has become popularised by the media. This course will look at the collection of geological information and the application of analytical techniques to criminal and civil investigations ranging from murder to identifying frauds and fakes."
Starts on Monday 24 September, 7-9pm, for 15 weekly meetings.
We could all be publishing books based on forensic geoscience in a year or two – Silver Daggers a-go-go.
For more info go to http://dbweb.liv.ac.uk/cll/page.asp?page_id=7370 , ring 0151 794 2523 or email conted@liverpool.ac.uk

Liverpool Saga - the people's poem

Calling poets and historians......... BBC Radio Merseyside (best local station in the country) is inviting everyone to be part of the Liverpool Saga – 800 lines for the city's 800 years.

"From the first tentative scratch of the pen
To the keyboard's final breathless amen,
One poem. A patchwork of laughter and tears.
Eight hundred lines. Eight hundred years."


Radio Merseyside's Pauline McAdam explains: 'Mersey Poet Roger McGough (pictured) has done the hard bit by giving us the opening and closing verses, taking his inspiration from the creation of the original Letters Patent, although he admits that the first line was harder to pen than he had imagined.'
“We’re talking about 800 years and the time of King John and so forth," says Roger. There were no processors in those days no electricity – it would have been a quill pen or something started the whole thing and then 800 years later people working on a computer so its that moment of time and all that length of time.
"It’s going to be a patchwork of ideas – hopefully people will write about their memories of Liverpool: some real; some imagined.”

Phil Redmond came up with the idea in conversation with Roger – and the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo are also taking part so you can contribute in a variety of ways. Rhyming couplets or blank verse. It’s up to you, although we are asking people to think about limiting themselves to 4 lines.

Roger has a couple of tips for writing the submissions which we need to make up the 792 lines yet to be written into the Saga: “Its got to be Liverpudlian – it’ll be witty and cheeky and all those good things. I suggest four lines at most – it could be two lines or an image or something overheard. I’d rather have two good lines than twenty eight. Quotable lines.”
A panel of local poets will be deciding on the final poem – and it will be gifted to the city. But it won’t end there – every entry will find its way onto the web once the final poem is compiled so you might be able to re version the poem you would have chosen.
You can submit your lines in several ways (include your age and contact details): online, at the link opposite; email your ideas to liverpoolsaga@bbc.co.uk; drop your parchment into the BBC Building in Hanover St; post them to Liverpool Saga, BBC Radio Merseyside, PO Box 95.8 Liverpool L69 1ZJ.

Comic verse competition

Harry Green tells me that The Liverpool Inklings – a long-established writers' group – is running the VINCENT McTIGUE COMPETITION OF COMIC VERSE, with a closing date of 30 October 2007. Poems/verses may be on any theme, as long as they are comic and do not exceed 48 lines. For full rules and entry form, go to http://www.aninkling.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ or hit the link opposite.

Quidnunc?

What now?
If you're hungry to get writing, or specifically (please god) hungry to get published, keep an eye on this blog. I'll post any news of new writing groups, events, competitions, projects and ideas that will amuse, intrigue, fascinate, promote or otherwise interest writers, whether here* in Liverpool or elsewhere.

It's success will depend on YOU to a huge extent, as I'll be relying on a steady supply of news coming in. So please email me at the address below, or use the Comment button here on the blog. You will, of course, be credited with any news you give me.

newwriters@capsica.net