Dame Jilly Cooper
Henry Curry • 8 October 2025
We're sad to hear that one of our patrons dies, aged 88
(Photo copyright Penguin.co.uk)
Novelist and NAWG Patron Dame Jilly Cooper, known for her best-selling romps including Rivals and Riders, has died at the age of 88.
Dame Jilly's most successful works were The Rutshire Chronicles, beginning with Riders in 1985, which portrayed the scandals, sex lives and social circles of the wealthy horse-loving country set.
Follow-up Rivals was published in 1988 and reached a new generation of fans last year when it was turned into a hit Disney+ TV series. She sold more than 11 million books in total in the UK alone.
Queen Camilla led the tributes, describing Dame Jilly as a legend and a "wonderfully witty and compassionate friend", adding: "May her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs."
(Courtesy of BBC News)
Here is the winner of our spooky ghost / horror story NAWG 2025 Autumn 250-word Flash Fiction competition . It ran from Friday 3rd to Friday 31st October, First, second, and third place entries will also be published in Link magazine. See the website HERE The prize of £25 for the winning entry goes to SUSAN KING for her story: RUSSIAN ROULETTE. I dread this day. Pumpkins with grinning faces and kids running about dressed as ghosts. Ghosts don’t wear costumes, they’d know that if they’d seen one. I can cope with all that – it’s the knocking on doors blackmailing adults into giving them treats that frightens me. Don’t they know how dangerous this is? Agnes has a bucket of Cadbury Heroes by the door. Her children have grown up and left home which is a relief to me, I can tell you I want to yell at the little ones who stand with expectant faces when she opens the door. Bugger off, I want to shout. But of course, I can’t. You can’t imagine the horror of watching her fill her syringe and pierce the wrapper of a chocolate bar, plunging the needle into the gooey inside and withdrawing it empty. You don’t know what it’s like to watch helpless as she smiles and hands out the sweets. She’s not daft enough to poison each one. For her it’s a game of Russian roulette. She waits for the post on the village Facebook page. She reads the hundreds of messages of sympathy with glee, scrolls slowly through emojis of crying faces, pink hearts and praying hands. She notes the date of the funeral and gets out her dark clothes. It’s the same black dress and coat she wore my cremation. A human black widow spider, she dispensed with me after our children were born. It’s just other people’s children she dislikes.
(copyright BBC) The BBC 500 Words Competition is open for entries. Make sure you submit your stories before 9pm, Friday 7 November. There are two age categories: 5-7 and 8-11 year-olds and spelling, punctuation and grammar are not marked - as has always been the case for 500 Words, it's all about our writers' brilliant creativity! There are prizes to be won - each winner will take home a bundle of books and the gold winners will also win 500 books for their school library. All the details on the BBC Bitesize website here https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/topics/ce5jljmy5ljt
Members can go to the Members Only page (you'll need the password) and read stories that were a little too long to fit in the normal Link magazine - see the section marked 'Fiction Special' --> HERE
The deadline date for paying 2025-26 subscriptions to NAWG is 31st August 2025. Any groups or individuals who have not paid by this date will be removed from the active database and will not be sent publications in future, able to vote in the AGM, allowed to enter the 2026 members' competitions, or be listed on the website. The groups and individual members who have not yet paid are being advised of the deadline. Groups and Individuals who fail to pay up may of course re-join. New groups and individuals joining the association will pay the full subscription (group £50, individual £25, student £15) and with their joining pack will be sent access to all the Link magazines published since 1st July 2025. They will be encouraged to enter the Members' competitions 2026 (closing date 31st March 2026.) After 31st March, new joiners subscriptions will cover them until 30th June 2027 i.e. they get their first period of up to three months free.
