Booking for 2013 now open - We are going to WARWICK 30th August – 1st September 2013 for our Annual Writing Festival.

2013-Booking-Form-Warwick 

Click above for Booking Form – to be used in conjunction with Workshop Details.

Each workshop has a unique code eg. (DG-Sat-02) with which you can book your workshops.

This is an OPEN FESTIVAL of WRITING, open to all like-minded writers, where you will hone your writing skills and meet new friends

Based in the heart of the Midlands, and set within 700 acres of rural parkland, the Conference Centre in the campus of Warwick University makes this an ideal place for our 2013 Festival of Writing. Yet, it is just 10 miles from the Midlands motorway network, less than 4 miles from Coventry railway station, and 11 miles from Birmingham International Airport. Very accessible for the whole country.

This is the Writing Festival that’s moved forward with the times whilst still retaining serious learning workshops. We have an exhilarating team of eight tutors for 2013 – Tim Wilson, AKA Jude Morgan – latest book ‘ The Secret Life of William Shakespeare’; James Nash, latest book, ‘Some Things Matter: 63 sonnets’; Marvin Close; script writer for television, including 70 episodes of Emmerdale; Steve Bowkett, published writer and qualified hypnotherapist – ‘Learn self-hypnosis for creativity’; Pippa Hennessy; tutor at the Writing School Leicester eBook course, ‘Understanding eBooks and Creating Your Own’; Roz Southey, Crime Writer, creator of the Charles Patterson Mystries; Linda Lewis, latest book, ‘The Writer’s Treasury of Ideas’, full time writer of short stories and judge for our Writing Competitions; and Simon Brett, creator of the Charles Paris crime novels will head a workshop on comedy writing.

Click here for:-Getting to Know the 2013 Tutors

Open to all talks:

1. A Workshop to get your creative juices going. ‘20 More Ideas to Boost Your Creativity’. A pop in workshop with Steve Bowkett.
2. ‘Talking Shakespeare’ another available to everyone session – author Jude Morgan will talk about the process of writing his latest novel THE SECRET LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, and explores the difficulties and rewards of writing historical fiction based on real people.
3. ‘Lines of Enquiry’ – In his hilarious rhyming one-man show Simon Brett skewers all the clichés of the Police Procedural, as seen in crime novels and on television.
4. ‘Soaps – The People’s Choice’ an anecdotal talk by Marvin Close. He has the inside line on how soaps are made and why they endure.

These are all extra to the four, bookable sessions available to all delegates throughout the weekend.

Click here:  to see the workshops that are on offer

Gervase Phinn will speak at the Gala Dinner

 If you’ve never heard him speak before you will definitely be seeking him out for more, after you’ve heard him.

What more could you want? How about use of a free to all fitness centre and heated swimming pool? Or, en suite rooms with baths? A Gala Dinner in the Chancellors Suite at Warwick University, where the 2013 competition winners will be announced?

For all of this, the full weekend package will be £250 for non-NAWG members and £230 for members.

Day delegates welcome – Saturday, will include the two talks, and is £80/£70 for two workshops and lunch. Sunday, £70/£60 for two workshops and lunch.

Also, a very special treat, an optional chance to stay on Sunday night for a trip to the renouned pub ‘The Dirty Duck’ in Stratford, http://www.dirtyduck-pub-stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/  for a drink and a meal and a look round the town.

email: pamfish@ntlworld.com   for full details. Or, contact: Anne Steward, Booking Administrator, 6 Spring Bank Croft, Holmfirth, HD9 2LW 01484 769930, casualwriter@hotmail.com

Brochures and booking forms for the 2013 Festival will be posted to NAWG Groups and Associate members with the February 2013 LINK.

Please ask your Secretary if you have not seen them.

But, this is an OPEN FESTIVAL all are welcome to join us, don’t be shy we are a frieindly group.

For downloadable version of brochure

Click link:

 Brochure:  2013_Brochure_030313

Booking Form: 2013-Booking-Form-Warwick

 email pamfish@ntlworld.com to obtain these by post.

Click above for Booking Form – to be used in conjunction with Workshop Details.

Each workshop has a unique code eg. (DG-Sat-02) with which you can book your workshops.

You may pay on line with PayPal

Would all NAWG members, kindly put the name of their group, or confirm that they are an associate member, directly on this page, under the ‘Name of Group /Associate?’

If you would like to consider joining NAWG to enjoy the benefits of membership, why not go to the ‘Thinking of Joining’  page and review the options.

You may reserve your place and bookings for workshops by paying a £100 deposit now, the full amout payable before the beginnning of July.  Any booking made after this date must be paid in full.

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2013 Festival at Warwick should top it all, but 2012 wasn’t so bad . . .

NAWG Open Festival of Writing at Nottingham…

…was a great success.

On the weekend after the August Bank Holiday, both NAWG members and like-minded writers with a broad spectrum of abilities, got together for an exceptional weekend, focussed on improving their writing.

It began with a free – new this year – workshop for all, headed by Steve Bowkett.  It was for early-bird delegates, to get them into the writing mood. A ‘pop-in’ workshop, for those that might be bored waiting for the main events, but by the time that I ‘popped-in’ it was in full swing with twenty or so delegates eager to get their writing weekend started.

The weather was good, so the barbeque went very well, and we all relaxed into a happy chatty group. After the first workshop sessions that evening we were entertained by Mark Gwynne-Jones, a performance poet who is verging on a stand-up comic and he led us happily into the rest of the weekend.

Alison Chisholm, Linda Lewis, Julie Bokowiec and Simon Whaley took the main teaching workshops and Jennifer Margrave and Chris Day gave lively and interesting talks about publication and promoting your books. We also had representatives from Filament Publishing, Byker Books, Goldenford Books and New Writers UK in the Market Place on Saturday.

Libby Pilgrim receiving her certificate for her shortlisted entry in the NAWG Competitions, ‘A Poem by Children’, category.

Jane Wenham-Jones entertained us after the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony. She gave us one of her witty anecdotal talks in her warm hearted funny way and I for one had tears in my eyes from so much laughter. Libby Pilgrim, along with many other prize-winners attended the awards ceremony, to personally collect her certificate and prize in the ‘Poem by Children’ category in our 2012 NAWG Writing Competitions – another new for this year item. She is photographed with Jane Wenham-Jones who presented the certificates and trophies this year.

Denise Robertson our president who usually presents the prizes was unable to attend, but sent this letter to be read in her absence.

I am so sorry not to be with you this year, particularly as it sounds as though you’re in for a wonderful…and productive…weekend. I am  pleased with the progress NAWG is now making. It was always intended to provide opportunities for new writers to move into the professional world, in other words it’s role was to be the cocoon from which amazing things would emerge. At last, due to the hard work and imagination of your officers, that aim is close to being realised. Hopefully, you will leave on Sunday energised, inspired and wiser. I’m ready to be gladdened…but not surprised….by your achievements in the future.

Denise Robertson.

The full list of prize-winners is published elsewhere on this website, on the NAWG Competition page.

We are at the moment busily securing a venue for 2013, full details to be announced soon, but one thing is for sure, there will be no increase in the prices for the weekend.

Further details:- pamfish@ntlworld.com or casualwriter@hotmail.com

  Would you like to see a preview of what’s coming for 2013? 

CLICK HERE