Category: Issue 2 articles

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How to Approach this Manual

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              The main issue with writing a manual such as this is that one size does not fit all. Writers and writing groups differ around the world. To try to define them is like answering the old query – how long is a piece of string?                Some writers are novices wanting to test-run their first urges to put pen to paper; others are interested in honing the skills they have already developed. A few want to find their individual Voices; others want to transcribe a book already in their imagination onto paper, or to complete their memoirs.  Some  write in isolation, while others prefer … Continue reading How to Approach this Manual

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Why You Should Write

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I consider myself to be a card-carrying pacifist but one thing which triggers me is when people say Who me? I can’t write!  So how do I start?  ~ Question One ~  It’s a two-part process.  Listen to yourself – the stories you tell your family, your neighbours, your co-workers, and more intimately your best friend, your lover, and most revealing of all, what you tell yourself. These are the roots from which your Creative Writing pieces will grow.                 The second process is much harder. Have the confidence to write these stories down. This is what most people mean when they say … Continue reading Why You Should Write

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Writing: How To Get Started

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If I knew the one easy answer to this I’d be typing these words on my private island in the Bahamas. I’ve covered how to begin writing by advising you to find the right creative writing group for you, one which provides support and encouragement. However, what happens when Writer’s Block paralyses you when staring at a pristine white page? This phenomenon seems to fall into three categories:  a)      I’m stuck   – with this poem or prose piece, in which case put it in a drawer and come back to it in a day or two.  b)      I’m stuck   – with this first draft … Continue reading Writing: How To Get Started

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Reflections on using Stimuli from some NCW Group Members

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~ just to reassure you that we’re all the same ~   I don’t know if it’s an age thing or something that’s always been present with me but when I’m put on the spot in a class situation, I always become a blithering idiot and this translates into the ‘rabbit caught in the headlights’ initial reaction I experience most weeks  …… and sometimes the rabbit has myxomatosis which makes it even worse and impossible for the rabbit to move at all!  However, once the lights dampen down I can usually get my brain in gear and produce something, but nothing … Continue reading Reflections on using Stimuli from some NCW Group Members

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Mary Farrell – Biography

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On returning from S.W. France to live in Northern Ireland, retired teacher of twenty-six years Mary Farrell joined her first Creative Writing Group in 2017. For the last four years, she has been the Facilitator of the North Coast Writers Group. She is a member of the Judging Panel for the Weekly Prompts Competition run by the Reedsy Online Publishing Company. Her first Collection of varied pieces, It’s like Walking a Tightrope was published in September 2021, and her second Out of the Chrysalis in May 2022. Her debut Collection of short stories, The Kingdom, was published in October 2022, all three books by Impspired Press. She read … Continue reading Mary Farrell – Biography

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ON THE FRAGILE DYNAMICS OF IDENTITY

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AND THE BENEFITS OF JOURNALS Books lead to other books. Read one and you’re reminded of something you read the other day. New material refers to past releases, either directly or in roundabout ways. Genres cross over, involving similar concepts, tropes, devices. Writers lift, pay tribute, re-imagine, claim as their own and take it a step further in the name of compelling art. Pick up the trail and we end up making extraordinary connections. Welcome to Connection Degree Three … Kafka On The Shore… The Face Of Another… The White Castle. Three outlandish stories on the process of writing and the effect it … Continue reading ON THE FRAGILE DYNAMICS OF IDENTITY

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Dr. Elizabeth V. Koshy

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Dr. Elizabeth V.Koshy is an Associate Professor in English Literature at Dr.A.B.Telang Senior College, Pune, India. Her areas of interest include relationships, environment and women’s issues. Her poems have been published by Sweetycat Press, Clarendon House Press, Gertrude’s Writing Room, Caesurae.org, The Writers Club (Grey Thoughts) and by Stacy Savage in Whispering Willows: Tree Poems. A short story has been accepted for publication by Academy of the Heart and Mind.          Travelling to Kerala on the Jayanti Janata Express! We looked forward to the summer vacation the whole long year, for our yearly visit to our grandparents’ house. The train bound for … Continue reading Dr. Elizabeth V. Koshy

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Matt McGuirk

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Matt McGuirk teaches and lives with his wife and two daughters in New Hampshire. He was a BOTN 2021 nominee, is now a regular contributor at Fevers of the Mind and has poems and stories published in over 75 literary magazines with over 100 accepted pieces. His debut collection, Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities with Alien Buddha Press is available on Amazon, linked at the end of the bio and also on his website. Follow him on Twitter: @McguirkMatthew and Instagram: @mcguirk_matthew.  Website: http://linktr.ee/McGuirkMatthew  Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities: https://www.amazon.com/Daydreams-Obsessions-Realities-hybrid-collection/dp/B09M5KY8HH/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= The Wild West My wife bought me a leatherbound, hand-stitched notebook for Christmas and it got me thinking about what … Continue reading Matt McGuirk

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Anissa Sboui

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A University teacher and poet, living in Sousse, Tunisia. -The writer of 5 volumes in English language: Transcend (2018), Rebirth (2019)and Number One (2020), The Co-Avid Breath (2021) and Hurricane (2022). She wrote 2 poetry books in Arabic and 2 short-stories, entitled “Alone” and “Coincidence”. – Her poems featured in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, The Writers’ Club, The Criterion Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, Dumpster Fire Press, Medusa’s Kitchen, The 2020 Annual by the Elizabeth River Writers, Valiant Scribe, Impspired Magazine. What if What if the autist gets along With the ill What if the wheel-chaired Stand still Like … Continue reading Anissa Sboui

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Gavin Prinsloo

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Coming soon… I wrote this piece about the trench warfare in France 1914 – 1918, where men were slaughtered like sheep at every blast of a whistle on both sides.As far as I am concerned, ALL war is a crime. Conflagration I am freezing cold, my uniform soaked through, the icy water chilling through the tthree layers of fabric. My rifle in my hands, a weighted encumbrance, but so nescessary, (the cough of a bullet a familiar sound), for my life depended on it. I am so afraid, petrified, as I lie in this flooded trench, my comrades around me, … Continue reading Gavin Prinsloo