Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun Fictionforfun

A Festival to Celebrate all that is fiction

22 March - Historical

23 March - Children's

24 March - Crime

25 March - Contemporary

Free tickets available here

A Festival to Celebrate all that is fiction

22 March - Historical

23 March - Children's

24 March - Crime

25 March - Contemporary

Free tickets available here

Fiction for Fun - how to be involved

FREE TICKETS

Tickets are FREE and available from the Shaftesbury Arts Centre

Join us for coffee

Every morning chat to a writer about their craft, inspiration and process

Join a workshop

We have two workshops running each afternoon. Come and see what you can produce in a guided and supportive environment

Read out your own Work

After all daytime sessions, there will be open mic session opportunities for YOU to read out your work and receive feedback or enjoy the limelight

11.30 am - 12.30 pm & 4 pm - 5 pm daily. Email fictionforfun@btinternet.com to be on the list.

About

Event Highlights

Do you love reading?

Have you every fancied yourself as a writer?

How hard can it be to write poetry?

Learn about the process of writing.

Find out what overnight success really means.

Talk about the process of writing

Read out your own work.

About Us

Event Highlights

Rosie King writes under the name of Rosie Lear and has just published her 6th and final book in her medieval murder mystery series. Rosie's books can be found here

Fran Hill writes under the name of Tiggy Hayes. She writes short stories and often reads her stories out on This is Alfred. She runs Scribblers Writing Group for new writers to build confidence and enjoy writing with a group.

Event History

Event Highlights

Writing Groups

A new initiative by two local authors is under way for March 2023.

Fiction for Fun is a celebration of local published and unpublished authors of fiction, and will include local creative writing groups as well.

Fran Hill and Rosie King, who both write under pseudonyms - Tiggy Hayes and Rosie Lear - are both passionate about encouraging lo

A new initiative by two local authors is under way for March 2023.

Fiction for Fun is a celebration of local published and unpublished authors of fiction, and will include local creative writing groups as well.

Fran Hill and Rosie King, who both write under pseudonyms - Tiggy Hayes and Rosie Lear - are both passionate about encouraging local talent to write, to dream and to publish.

The event will take place at The Grosvenor Hotel in Shaftesbury from Wednesday 22 March until Saturday 25 March.

Plans are already afoot for morning coffee and chat sessions with local authors, poets and playwrights, for displays from creative writing groups, and for evening talks based around the work of a publisher, an editor…..how to get started….and we will hear from local authors who have made a success of their writing. The whole event is intended to be lighthearted fun for anyone whose hobby is reading fiction or indeed, writing fiction!

Books from all participants will be available to buy, ranging from children’s books through to historical fiction and crime writing. We have a retired detective from the metropolitan police force who will tell us how it really is rather than how the books depict it…a fascinating evening or afternoon…and a chance to read your own work at one of our workshops…or someone else will read it for you if you prefer.

The event is absolutely free and we hope many local people will come and enjoy the pleasure of reading fiction both published and unpublished, locally.

If you would like to be involved in this new initiative either as an author, a creative writing group or an exhibitor of fiction, please contact us at fictionforfun@btinternet.com

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Writing Groups

Event Highlights

Writing Groups

Scribblers Writing Group

an introduction to writing in a gentle positive group where encouragement and fun are the most important elements

tiggyhayes@hotmail.co.uk

Shaftesbury Writers Group

A critiquing group, for people who are in the habit of writing regularly and looking to get work published, whether prose or poetry. We currently h

Scribblers Writing Group

an introduction to writing in a gentle positive group where encouragement and fun are the most important elements

tiggyhayes@hotmail.co.uk

Shaftesbury Writers Group

A critiquing group, for people who are in the habit of writing regularly and looking to get work published, whether prose or poetry. We currently have about the maximum number of people that the group can accommodate, so please email richefff1@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list .

Writing for the Terrified.

Zoom classes for both beginners and published writers

Mon evening 7-9

Fri morning 10-12

for more information email dellagalton@gmail.com

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Historical Writing

22/03/2023

Coffee with historical writer Rosie Lear FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

22/03/2023

Coffee with historical writer Rosie Lear FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

We invite you to join us for coffee with local author Rosie Lear who will be delighted to share her tales of medieval mysteries based on his...

Event Details

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea & an ancient Artefact FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea & an ancient Artefact FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Join us for an interactive workshop triggered by a local artefact from Gold Hill Museum. Come and be inspired. Have a go at writing a hist...

Event Details

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Maggie Pierce FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Maggie Pierce FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

'Who'd want to read about me? Learn about writing memoirs. Which memories to embellish and which to leave out? Tickets available here

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with Karen Dickson

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with Karen Dickson

Historical author Karen Dickson discusses her latest book and her journey to publication. Tickets available here

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with MICHAEL JECKS

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with MICHAEL JECKS

The potential pitfalls of writing historical. The obvious points there are use of language (do you use modern or try to give a flavour of co...

Event Details

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Childrens' Writing

23/03/2023

Coffee with Angela McAllister FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

23/03/2023

Coffee with Angela McAllister FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Enjoy a chat and hear what inspired Angela's latest book 'Once upon a Hillside'.

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

23/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Tony Deyes FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

-

4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

23/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Tony Deyes FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

JoinTony for a workshop learning about the writing process and the relationship between his illustrator(s), and the editors from Reedsy. Ha...

Event Details

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

23/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Gillian Cross FOLLOWED BY OPEN Mic opportunity

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

23/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Gillian Cross FOLLOWED BY OPEN Mic opportunity

“Who Am I? An oral plot workshop” Join Gillian as she shares her own techniques used in the Demon Headmaster to create plot for a story. ...

Event Details

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

23/03/2023

In conversation with Kelly McCall

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

23/03/2023

In conversation with Kelly McCall

Join Angela McAllister as she chats with Kelly McCall about teaching children poetry and how Kelly used the lockdown to produce her own book...

Event Details

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

23/03/2023

Evening Talk with Rupert Atlee

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

23/03/2023

Evening Talk with Rupert Atlee

Lost at the End of the World, Join Rupert to learn how his real-life adventures in Patagonia his children's book. Tickets available here

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Crime Writing

24/03/2023

Coffee with Poet Richard Forman FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

24/03/2023

Coffee with Poet Richard Forman FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Learn about the art of poetry with local writer and poet Richard Foreman. This will take the form of a workshop so come and have a go at wr...

Event Details

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

24/03/2023

Coffee with fantasy writer Steve McAuliffe FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

24/03/2023

Coffee with fantasy writer Steve McAuliffe FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Writing for Stage and page : Making the ordinary extra-ordinary

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Crime Writing

24/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Karen Cole FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

-

4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

24/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Karen Cole FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

We invite you to join us for an interactive workshop with a local book reviewer Karen Cole. What does she look for in a crime novel? What...

Event Details

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

24/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Rik Lonsdale FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

-

4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

24/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Rik Lonsdale FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

All good crime needs action. Join Rik to learn how to write believable and suspenseful action. His book Water and Blood will be out on 22 ...

Event Details

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

24/03/2023

Crime writer janet Laurence

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

24/03/2023

Crime writer janet Laurence

Janet turned her passion for cookery into a series of crime novels. A former chair of the Crime Writers Association she still judges their ...

Event Details

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

24/03/2023

Real life Crime with John Bartlett

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

24/03/2023

Real life Crime with John Bartlett

Fact is stranger than fiction.

Join Rosie King as she chats with retired detective Inspector about real-life crime. Tickets available here

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Contemporary Writing

25/03/2023

Coffee with Viginia Moffatt FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

25/03/2023

Coffee with Viginia Moffatt FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Chat about growing up in literary family. How she switched from historical (Echo Hall) to her current contemporary novel The Wave

10.30am

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12.30pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

25/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Anne Louise Richards FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

25/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Anne Louise Richards FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Anne Louise creates illustrations for children's books and cover design. Join her in a workshop to try your hand at capturing the essence o...

Event Details

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

25/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Joni de Winter and Susan Grant FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

-

4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

25/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Joni de Winter and Susan Grant FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

Do you have a story to tell, but not sure where to start? Susan and Joni will be talking about developing their first original musical and t...

Event Details

2.00 pm

-

4.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

25/03/2023

in conversation with Sally Page

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

25/03/2023

in conversation with Sally Page

Sunday Times Best Selling Author Sally Page chats to Virginia Moffatt about her writing What it feels like to see her name on the Sunday Ti...

Event Details

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

25/03/2023

talk from Della Galton

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Event Details

25/03/2023

talk from Della Galton

My Path to Publication and some very important things I’ve learned – that may help you too. SIX important rules. Tickets available here

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Grosvenor Arms Shaftesbury

Site Content

Rosie King

Memoir Writer - Maggie Pierce

Rosie Lear has been writing and reading all her life and doesn’t ever remember being taught to read! She was born reading!

Her first published stories were in teenage years…short tales for children for a little magazine for Sunday school children. Whilst at teacher training college she augmented her meagre grant by writing stories for Woman’s Own which paid a handsome £5! In those days that was riches!

A varied career alongside twenty seven years teaching English literature also saw her running an hotel with her husband, a health food shop, a children’s clothes business and latterly, after the death of her husband, returning to writing.

Writing was therapy and reading is her happy place.

Her series of Sherborne Medieval mysteries uses historical facts blended with fictional characters and has proved popular with lovers of local history married with fiction.

Memoir Writer - Maggie Pierce

Maggie moved to Shaftesbury in 2015, her 25th address in her fairly long life!

She is an avid reader, a very keen walker with her husband John, a happy gardener, a sometime writer and a very privileged mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

She writes short stories and sometimes reads them for ‘This is Alfred’ and in 2013 embarked on writing her memoir by attending a memoir writing class. This was self- published for select readers in 2016.

Inspirational Artefact

Memoir Writer - Maggie Pierce

Inspirational Artefact

Join us for an interactive workshop. Gold Hill Museum is a treasure trove of local artefacts, and have kindly agreed to bring one such item to see how history might inspire creative writing. Come and be inspired. Tickets available here

Karen Dickson

Inspirational Artefact

As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a writer. As a child I was always writing stories, or telling stories in my head. My dream of being a published writer finally came true in December 2018 when I was offered a two-book deal by publishers Simona & Schuster.

I was born in Folkestone, Kent but when I was nine, my family emigrated to South Africa where I lived for fifteen years before returning to the UK in 1991. I have lived in Shaftesbury ever since and my first three novels are set, in part, around North Dorset.

I have been married to John for thirty-four years, and have two grown-up children and a grandson. My husband and I are expecting another grandson any day now.

As well as being a writer, I am a professional dog walker. Walking the dogs in the fields and woods around Shaftesbury is perfect for working out plot lines or wrestling with difficult dialogue. It is also a job which allows me the flexibility I need to write so when I’m not working you will find me in the back bedroom, at my ancient laptop, typing away while drinking copious mugs of Red Bush tea.

Michael Jecks

Karen Dickson

Michael Jecks

Michael Jecks is the author of some 50 novels, with 32 in his Last Templar mystery series. He is currently working on a Tudor crime series of 8 titles starring the incompetent assassin Jack Blackjack, and his modern day Art of Murder series. The first, Portrait of a Murder, is published in April. Michael is a past Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, is the Hon. Secretary of Detection Club, and is a Smithsonian expert on their Mystery Lovers England tour.

Site Content

Angela McAllister

Angela McAllister began her career in publishing as an illustrator, working on books such as Delia Smith's Christmas Cookery and others for the BBC. She began writing for children in 1985 and has since published over eighty books for children of all ages, including picture books, early readers, middle-grade fiction, novels, folk-tale retellings and stories from Shakespeare and Dickens. During that time she has worked with numerous publishers, editors and illustrators and has clocked up many miles in school visits, which she loves. Her books have won several awards, including the Red House Book Award and an Aesop Award from the American Folklore Society. Angela has been a tutor at the Arvon Foundation and regularly runs creative writing workshops in local schools. Her most recent book, 'Once Upon a Hillside', seven stories spanning 6,000 years, is set on the chalk downland of Cranborne Chase.

Gillian Cross

Angela McAllister

Gillian Cross has been writing books for children for over forty years. She has won many prizes, including the Carnegie Medal (for Wolf), the Whitbread Children’s Novel Award and the Smarties prize (for The Great Elephant Chase) and the Little Rebels Award (for After Tomorrow).

Her Demon Headmaster books have twice been serialised on television, The Great Elephant Chase was dramatized by the Burgtheater in Vienna and she has written popular retellings of The Odysseyand The Iliad, magnificently illustrated by Neil Packer. Her latest book, Ollie Spark and the Exploding Popcorn Cannon was published this month.

Tickets available here

Tony Deyes

Angela McAllister

Kelly Mccall

“Learn, laugh and Love the Planet” is the series name of his current group of picture book stories. Tony has always enjoyed telling stories and while practising this skill on his young children, he found increased success when using pictures - the picture of a Willow-Pattern plate for example. Why are those three men were going over that bridge? Where have they come from? Consequently his current stories attempt to answer simple questions children often ask: “Why do the Leaves Fall off the Trees?”, “What Makes the Waves Come and Go?”, and create a fable in a world created through pictures. Four pages of real facts follow on and, for the ‘older’ young readers, a final two pages enlarge the perspective into the relevance of the topic (trees, the sea, etc.) for the climate. Unusually perhaps Tony is not over-concerned about publishing the stories; the creative journey has been fun, and he recommends it! Tickets available here

Kelly Mccall

Kelly McCall is a local teacher who writes in her spare time, usually for the children she teaches. Over the first lockdown she found a way of connecting with the children in her class through poetry - she set herself the challenge of writing poems about topics of the children’s choice. Since then she has self published this collection of poems in a book dedicated to her class.

Kelly has also written a number of picture books, which she has been sending to publishers and is halfway through writing her first novel children aged 9-11.

Tickets available here

Rupert Atlee

Kelly Mccall

Rupert Atlee

Rupert Attlee is a Prep School English teacher and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He enjoyed a career in international public relations and sports management, before going into teaching some 14 years ago.
He is the author of ‘The Trail to Titicaca’ which was long-listed for the Thomas Cook Travel Book of the Year and become a recommended GSCE English literature text. This book tells of his adventures cycling up the Andes in South America. He has also had articles published on experiences in China, Myanmar and Australia.
When not in the classroom, up a mountain, on a bike, by the sea or on a tennis court, he lives on the Dorset/Wiltshire border with his wife, Jules and two daughters, India & Flo, and their apricot cockapoo, Archie.

Tickets available here

Site Content

Richard Foreman

Former comic strip scripter, community arts worker and performer, Richard Foreman writes poems and stories, many of which have been featured on 'This is Alfred'. He scripted Black Orchid on a monthly basis for American publisher DC Comics in the 1990s, and photo-stories/comic strips for Who Cares (a UK national magazine for young people in care) for 20 years. His prose and poetry has appeared in a number of publications. His short story collection, Wilful Misunderstandings, was published by Lepus Books in April 2016. He is an associate editor of Tears in the Fence magazine. Website: https://www.richeff.co.uk/home

Steve McAuliffe

Richard Foreman

I decided to become a writer way back, just before the turn of the century. After years of care-work I decided to take a year off and become rich and famous. Six months later I was sent to Job Club where we were given stamps and envelopes and forced to mail off applications for jobs. Noticing that the overseer never checked the postal addresses, under the guise of an old age pensioner I began writing to various actors; politicians; and even Her Majesty the Queen. This eventually turned into my book, The Letters of Harry Tartt which was published in 2001.

I then had a play performed at the White Bear Theatre in London. Riding the crest of this wave I promptly produced nothing for 3 years, and then Kew Gardens hosted my magical children's play: "The Littlest Tree". Bored of fame and fortune (!) I spent the next few years writing and narrating numerous plays for people with learning disabilities and eventually had another book published (Farraway, in 2017).

Having had 3 plays performed in Somerset in the past 4 years I recently helped set up Wink Wink Theatre Company with a view to producing original works of theatre and utilising local talent. My most recent play performed was called 'Rehearsal" -- a troupe of actors are plagued by the ghosts of a theatre that refuses to die.

Rik Lonsdae

Richard Foreman

Rik Lonsdae

Rik Lonsdale’s lifelong desire to write had to wait to find expression through three previous careers and the raising of children. In the quiet of the Dorset countryside, he was finally able to turn his energies to the art and craft of writing. Since then, he has had over forty short stories published. His first novel, Water and Blood, is published on 22ndMarch 2023 and is available through all the usual channels.

When he isn't writing you can probably find Rik at the bottom of his garden tending his vegetable plot.

You can find Rik at https://www.riklonsdale.com/or on social media.

Tickets available here

Karen Cole

Janet Laurence

Rik Lonsdae

Karen Cole began writing about books on her blog, Hair Past A Freckle in 2013. She is particularly drawn to crime fiction and thrillers but also enjoys historical, science fiction and fantasy, literary, contemporary, young adult and middle grade fiction.

Kren can be heard regularly reviewing books on 'This is Alfred'

She is listed as one of the 31 most influential crime fiction bloggers in the UK,
She is an Emotional Learning Support Assistant in a local primary school where she also works as a teaching assistant and midday supervisor.
Karen grew up in Shaftesbury and still lives in the town with her family and pets.

Tickets available here

Janet Laurence

Janet is chiefly known as a crime writer, she was included in The Times list of 100 masters of crime writing and is the author of Writing Crime Fiction – Making Crime Pay, pub Aber. She has also written contemporary women’s fiction as Julia Lisle, and ghosted for a writer of romance. She is a member of the Guild of Food Writers, her cookery column ran for a number of years in the Daily Telegraph and her Just For Two has devoted followers. She has been a Writer in Residence at the University of Tasmania on three occasions and has run several series of writing courses, particularly on crime novels.

Janet has written three series of crime novels: ten featuring cordon bleu cook Darina Lisle, three historical starring Italian painter Canaletto and his time in mid-eighteenth century London, and is currently working on the third in a series set in Edwardian England with American Ursula Grandison as a private investigator, first two: Deadly Inheritance and Fatal Freedom.

Janet has twice served on the Society of Author’s Management Committee. She is a past Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and is currently on the CWA Historical Dagger judging panel for the best historical crime novel of the year. She is a member of the prestigious Detection Club.

John Bartlett

Janet Laurence

John Bartlett is an ex detective inspector who has worked in The Surrey Constabulary on Traffic, moving to the Met where he has been through CID, and also sampled the terrorist branch as well as duties throughout London.

The anecdotes he tells are a fascinating insight into how reality and crime novels don’t always add up, although as he says, fact is sometimes stranger than fiction!

Virginia Moffatt

Anne-Louise Richards

Virginia Moffatt was born in London in 1965, one of eight children, several of whom are also writers. Her brother is a theologian, one sister, a poet, a second, a translator and her twin sister also writes novels.

She has a degree in Biology from the University of York, a Masters in Voluntary Sector Organisation and a Diploma in Creative Writing from the Oxford Department of Continuing Education.

After 30 years of working in social care (mainly with people with learning disabilities) she has had a variety jobs. She is currently Co-Director, Operations for the campaign organisation People & Planet.

Virginia always wanted to be a writer, but work and family life kept getting in the way, and it wasn’t till she was 40 that she began to take her writing seriously. She started her first novel, Echo Hall, in 2004, which was finally published in 2017 by Unbound. The novel was longlisted for The Bridport Prize 2015 and the December 2015 Retreat West Opening Chapter competition. Her second novel, The Wave was published in 2019 by Harper One More Chapter and was shortlisted for the July 2015 Retreat West Opening Chapter Competition.. She has also written a flash fiction collection Rapture and What Comes After (Gumbo Press), and is currently working on two novels, The Wake and The Cloud and a novella Telling the Bees.

Virginia also writes non-fiction and has published three books for Darton Longman and Todd. She edited and contributed to Reclaiming the Common Good: How Christians can help rebuild this broken world (2017), wrote a Lent guide Nothing More and Nothing Less (2017) and a Bible study guide How the Bible can help us understand approaching the end of life (2020). She also edited three other guides in the series.

Virginia is married to Chris Cole, Director of Drone Wars UK. Throughout their married life they have been active in the anti-war movement and in the last decade Virginia has also campaigned against austerity and welfare cuts. They have three grown up children and have lived inShaftesbury since 2021..

Anne-Louise Richards

Anne Louise Richards is a self-taught local artist and illustrator and first became a published author at 19. She now freelances with art and illustration work, most recently with the Chamber of Commerce to create their "safe to shop" artwork as well as other promotional materials for them. A consummate creative, she works in a variety of mediums and skills from jewellery making to paper cutting two occasion cakes and in a wide range of subjects. She is known locally as a musician and singer/songwriter and acts in stage productions.

Tickets available here

Joni and Susan

Anne-Louise Richards

Joni and Susan

Susan Grant and Joni de Winter are members of experienced performing duo, Belle Street. They are passionate about providing uplifting, high quality entertainment and bringing their own brand of fringe style interactive musical theatre to as many people as possible! tickets available here

Sally page

Della Galton

Joni and Susan

After studying history at university, Sally moved to London to work in advertising. In her spare time she studied floristry at night school and eventually opened her own flower shop. Sally came to appreciate that flower shops offer a unique window into people’s stories and she began to photograph and write about this floral life in a series of non-fiction books. Later, Sally continued her interest in writing when she founded her fountain pen company, Plooms.co.uk.

In her debut novel, The Keeper of Stories, Sally combines her love of history and writing with her abiding interest in the stories people have to tell. Sally now lives in Gillingham, Dorset. Her eldest daughter, Alex, is studying to be a doctor and her youngest daughter is the author, Libby Page.

www.sallypage.com

Instagram: @bysallypage

Twitter: @sallypagebooks

Della Galton

Della Galton is a novelist, short story writer and journalist with over 35 years’ experience. Her writing credits include ten novels, several novellas and over 2000 short stories published in the UK and abroad.

She is the agony aunt for Writers’ Forum magazine and is a qualified Adult Education tutor.

Her latest bestselling romcoms are published by Boldwood Books. Her ‘How to Write’ Books are available from Amazon. For more information about Della see www.dellagalton.co.uk

Find Della's new series here

Tiggy Hayes

Della Galton

Tiggy Hayes is the pen name for Fran Hill.

Fran was born creating stories and spent many hours outside the head teacher’s office in trouble for using her imagination. Her father who spent nearly as many hours inside the office defending her would later tell her; ‘Never stop using that imagination’.

Fran continued to write and her stories got longer.

Now a passionate fan of Swanwick Writing School and NANOWRIMO where she writes a novel in the month of November, she has plenty in the drawer to fall back on. Her current story, a domestic drama is contemporary and is out looking for an agent.

Fran’s work as a virtual secretary opens avenues into many different lives and allows her to switch from efficient reliable hardworking assistant to creative, encouraging writer with a flick of her pen. Many will know her for The Gillingham and Shaftesbury Guide which she started to help a few friends out with advertising and many years later she still finds she is having to do in her spare time, something she admits she doesn’t really have. You may also know her from ‘This is Alfred’ where she pulls together a fantastic group of writers to deliver stories and poetry to the listeners.

Following her passion for writing fiction Fran loves to encourage others and as such runs Scribblers Writing Group who meet once a month to write and gain the confidence to take their scribblings further.

A Festival to Celebrate all that is fiction

A Festival to Celebrate all that is fiction

It’s almost here!

Fiction for Fun - how to be involved

FREE TICKETS

Join us for coffee

Join a workshop

Read out your own Work

About

Event Highlights

Event Highlights

Event Highlights

About Us

Event Highlights

Event Highlights

Event History

Event Highlights

Writing Groups

Writing Groups

Event Highlights

Writing Groups

Historical Writing

22/03/2023

Coffee with historical writer Rosie Lear FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

22/03/2023

Coffee with historical writer Rosie Lear FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea & an ancient Artefact FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea & an ancient Artefact FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Maggie Pierce FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

22/03/2023

Workshop over tea with Maggie Pierce FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

2.00 pm

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4.00 pm

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with Karen Dickson

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with Karen Dickson

6.00 pm

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7.00 pm

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with MICHAEL JECKS

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

22/03/2023

Evening Talk with MICHAEL JECKS

7.30 pm

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8.30 pm

Childrens' Writing

23/03/2023

Coffee with Angela McAllister FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY

10.30am

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12.30pm

23/03/2023

Coffee with Angela McAllister FOLLOWED BY OPEN MIC OPPORTUNITY