Author: Peter

I'm a retired civil servant in Surrey, UK and long-time blogger. These days I'm spending more time writing stories and doing other creative stuff

12 May – Will Noble

May 13, 2025
Ethel, who presented the meeting, with Will and a copy of his book.

The greatest city that never was? At the 12 May meeting, Will Noble gave us an entertaining view of the history of our town, based on his book Croydonopolis, enjoyed by meany members and now in paperback. Will highlighted Croydon’s long story of bold innovations and early failures, with an undaunted determination fuelled by men such as Archbishop John Whitgift and Sir James Marshall, a persistence which has carried through many rejected bids for official city status up to the present day.

Will told us his sights were originally set on scriptwriting, but instead he developed a career on the Londonist website, which he now edits. He plans to do more non-fiction one day, but his next book – you heard it here first – will probably be fiction. We look forward to it.

Read your Novel

May 8, 2025

I mean, read your draft novel, out loud, in public. This year, Novel London has revived the idea of providing a kind of regular ‘open mic’ session at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith where anyone can read the opening of their novel. Details of how to sign up are here – they talk breezily about being able to just walk in and read, but surely there’s a waiting list?

£75,000 for three pages?

May 2, 2025

A report in the Times today says a new prize offers £75,000 for just the first three pages of an unfinished novel.

The competition is being run by The Novelry, which runs writing courses, and the details are here. Submit your first few pages with an entry fee of £15: a shortlist will be selected and put to a public vote. The winner gets a free place on one of the Novelry’s courses to finish the novel, and apparently walks away still unpublished but with £75,000. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be £75,000 worth of credits for Novelry courses. More likely they hope the competition will fund itself, which would mean they are hoping for 5,000 entries – not madly optimistic, but it perhaps gives an idea of the odds on winning. Clearly they hope many entrants will sign up for their paid courses.

I don’t think I will be entering, but the tips provided further down the competition page are mildly interesting. They suggest a pretty conventional novel of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ type.

Spring Festival

Apr 15, 2025

Our friends in Sutton are holding a writers’ Spring Festival event at the Ecology Centre in Carshalton. Tickets are free – just scan the code on the poster above. There will be a chance to write and to look around the centre.