OUR READERS 18th April 2024

Maude read a hilarious story about her first professional bra fitting.
Maude Martin is the pen name of Tracy Burge, the name chosen in tribute to her Dorset roots, and in memory of her father and nan who both encouraged her writing and reading.
Her writing career began, in earnest, in October 2015 following the death of her father.
Maude has attended many writing workshops and courses, including ones run by Jayne Woodhouse, Clare Reddaway and Louise Voss. She is also a member of the writing peer review group, QQ.
Maude has performed at Stories at the Chapel, Stories on the Farm, and also at Priston Festival. She has also featured on BBC Upload, much to the delight of her Welsh family, who all tuned in.
Maude is currently writing her first novel.

John read one of his poems and a short story. Both focused on the strange, difficult, but ultimately loving relationship between a man and a woman. They both featured subtle word play and changes of tone.
John began writing seriously about twenty years ago; mostly poetry but also some fiction. He believes every story is a parable, a way of making sense out of a jumbled world, creating the patterns that are our crutch to coping with the impossible amount of inputs our minds have to put up with. He enjoys the shape and sound of words and the serendipity of meaning that comes from assembling them into sentences and lines.
John ran Poetika for a number of years, encouraging local poets and writers. He is an accomplished photographer (see some of his pictures on this website), and created the exhibition of watercolours by the founder of the Young Gallery in Salisbury.
Although John designs websites for a living his own website remains unbuilt, and sadly he is too reticent to publish his own writing.

Nikki read a thought provoking short story about a life transition: a girl is leaving school a little early as she already has a job lined up. It is about looking back as well as looking forward.
Nikki also writes short stories and flash fiction, and won the Wells Literary Festival short story competition in 2019.
Nikki is a qualified librarian and worked in London for many years.
Nikki decided to focus on writing crime novels when she realised that it was what she most loved reading. She has written a series contemporary police procedurals set in Wiltshire featuring a police detective, DI Jeff Lincoln. The fifth, recently published, is A Strange and Murderous Air. She is currently working on the sixth in the series.
Find out more from her website.

Craig read an extract from his recently published thriller The Good Morning Girl, available from Amazon. It was a dramatic account of the principle characters first meeting.
Craig is currently Head of English at Bishop Worsworth’s School.
In 2012 he was unwittingly exposed as the annonymous writer of the contoversial and humerous blog Crapteacher. Fortunately the infamy resulted in him becoming a columnist for The Times Literary Supplement.
Craig has recently completed a second novel Miss O-D’s Wonderfully Dysfunctional Support Bubble, aimed at Young Adults. He is currently planning his next books – a thriller series.
Craig continues to explore poetic prose and verse on his website and has had his writing win competitions and been accepted for publications and journals.

Clare read the intriguing opening from her debut novel Dancing in the Shallows, concerning a woman stuck in a dead-end routine, but for whom an unlooked for opportunity for change arises.
The book was recently published by Fairlight and is to be published in the USA and translated into Italian.
Clare was recently long-listed for the BBC National Short Story Awards and short-listed for the Bridport Prize. Her stories have been widely published, including one in an anthology of Botanical Short Stories.
Clare’s plays have been performed throughout the UK, including at the Edinburgh Festival and in London.
Clare also creates unusual and original live story events with her company A Word in Your Ear, and regularly leads story-walks in Bath and Bristol. She also runs monthly on-line writing workshops. Find out more from her website.

Many thanks to Noeline Smith for all the photographs on this page. See her website for some lovely images, notably landscapes.