16th January 2025 – Wylye Valley Writers

The readers at our 16th January 2025 meeting:

Maude read an extract from her forthcoming novel. The humorous piece featured Tansy taking the eleven-plus exam.
Maude Martin is the pen-name of Tracy Burge. She lives in Hanging Langford and is a notorious member of the gang-of-three who run Wylye Valley Writers. Tracy is also a keen member of Salisbury Writing Circle.
Tracy’s writing journey really began in September 2015, when she signed up with Creative Writing Salisbury. However years of preparation and ground work had already been laid down as her compulsive reading habit was firmly in place before primary school.
Tracy has read her work in a variety of venues, and recorded a piece that was played on BBC Upload Wiltshire.
Last year, in 2024, it was finally time to go for the ‘big one’ – the first novel. She is currently well under way with her first draft.
According to her family, Tracy’s mantra has long been ‘Why not make a good story remarkable by stretching the truth.’ Imagination supposedly being an essential part of the writer’s toolkit.

Michael read five poems that he had not previously presented in public. These were:
- After a Quaker Meeting.
- Boxing Day 2023 – a moving sonnet for Gaza.
- After My Mother’s Death in 2007 – a meditation on fading memory.
- Easter Dawn 2004 – concerning the transition from sleep to wakefulness.
- The Divine Birth – a translation of a 15^th c. mystic’s poem.
Michael is a composer and music producer, whose career has included extensive work for BBC Radio Three Features. He taught at the Junior Royal College of Music for 20 years, latterly as Head of Twentieth-Century Studies. One of his notable achievements was to conduct the world premiere run of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Nicholas Nickleby in 1981, during his time as their London Director of Music.
He and his wife have lived in Tisbury for 30 years, and during this time have established and run the Cherubim Music Trust which lends professional musical instruments to music students who cannot afford one that matches their talent.
Michael began writing poetry as an escape during a difficult phase in his teens, and thereafter developed expertise in writing lyrics for his own music. Poetry has always played a big part in his creative life — he has compiled handwritten poetry books for each of his grandchildren.

Martyn read his short story Lights in which he revisits childhood experiences on the island of Jersey. The story is based on fact: Martyn’s father was born in the Jersey village of Gorey and lived there throughout the five years of “The Occupation”; the “lobster incident” is true and took place in about 1967. A longer version of Lights is about to be published in “Thin Skin” magazine.
Martyn is a retired I.T. and Programme Change Director, who specialised in banking and investment systems. Much of this was for international banks, European central banks, and a U.K. Government department. Martyn had many non-fiction, technical articles published in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Martyn started writing fiction about three years ago when he attended creative writing classes in Salisbury. His short story Corrective Action was featured at Salisbury Library’s ”In the News” event in November 2023, and he has had a number of humorous short stories, about the adventures of Hilda and Muriel (a pair of rebellious sheep), published by the Australian flash fiction site “Witcraft”. More recently Martyn’s short story Casper and the Clock was featured in the December 2024 edition of Honeyguide Literary Magazine.
Martyn has been developing a longer-form mystery story set in a fictional village in the Wylye Valley, where he has lived since 1991.

Colin read four poems in a wide range of styles. These were:
- Anticipation of a Holiday on a Raft in the Netherlands, written in Rubaiyat form.
- The Maharajah of Jaipur Gangapore – a parody written in the style of Rudyard Kipling.
- Hair – a children’s poem about three girls: Milly, Gilly and Tilly.
- The Quave – a true nonsense poem where a strange fellow thinks odd thoughts beside the Ebble.
Colin began to write poetry as a child, then was inspired at school by joining a literary society whose President was Siegfried Sassoon. Later, medicine claimed him, and he became a paediatrician, writing spasmodically.
His work in a London teaching hospital meant that he saw children from all over the UK with illnesses that no-one seemed able to sort out. He has published a collection of the more unusual ones, called ‘Listening to Mother’.
After his wife died, grief goaded him into writing again. Since then, he has written about 1,500 poems and self-published four books of verse.
More of a poetaster than a poet, about a third of his output is for children, the rest vary from laments to elegy, from nonsense verse to parody.

Sam read an extract from her forthcoming fantasy novel The Power Born. The piece told of a dramatic press conference held in New York city where an announcement is made of an astonishing revelation.
Sam trained as a print graphic-designer at Toronto’s George Brown College of Art & Design, and has over 20 years of corporate design experience both in the UK and Canada. She started applying her passion for typography and layout to art books back in 2012. Since then, she has been involved in the design and publication of over 250 books, encompassing a wide range of genres, from business guides and self-help books, to children’s stories and fantasy fiction.
Sam Pearce is the founder of SWATT Books, a self-publishing consultancy based in Amesbury dedicated to empowering authors to publish their own books to the same standard as traditional publishing-houses, whilst maintaining control over their rights and royalties.
Sam has been captivated by fantasy books and the art of storytelling for as long as she can remember. The Power Borne is her debut contemporary fantasy novel. The tale is set in the rolling hills of Wiltshire where witches are real and their powers have shaped history in secret—until now. Its themes are of identity, prejudice, and finding one’s place in the world later in life.

Photographs on this page by John Bruce, lightanddarker.com