Thursday 25 May, 7.30pm, Upstairs at St Aldates Tavern
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Save the date!
Author Archive: Freya Morris
Not the Oxford Literary Festival
Monday 27 March, 7.30pm, Wadham Room, King’s Arms, Broad Street, OX1 3SP
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Why wait to be invited to speak at the official festival? Everybody is welcome to come along and present their new titles at this informal event! The only rules: books published during 2022; and 5 minutes max per speaker.
Register with brendastones40@hotmail.com
Spring walk
Saturday 18 March, 2-4pm
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Details to be circulated nearer the date.
Members attend at their own risk.
Found in Translation: Lecture by Jane Spiro
Wednesday 8 March, 6-7pm, Oxford Brookes, John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre, Headington Campus, OX3 0BP
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WiO member Professor Spiro will look at different kinds of translation: from one culture, language, subject discipline and way of writing to another. Rather than losing ourselves as we make these journeys, she will discuss ways in which we actually find new ‘selves’ as we cross from one border to another. Examples will derive from language teaching and teacher development experiences worldwide, and translating these experiences into poetry, story, research and pedagogy over a teaching lifetime.
Free to all, and followed by champagne reception.
Jenny Lewis
Wednesday 1 March, 5pm for 5.30pm, Kellogg College, 60-62 Banbury Road, OX2 6PN
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Join WiO member Jenny Lewis and poet Michael Daniels to follow a poem’s journey from initial spark, through selection, editing, design, production, promotion and marketing to the finished pamphlet Ravenser Odd from which Michael will read.
Tea served from 5pm; free entry for all.
Memoir Writing: Heather Rosser
Sharing memories is part of what makes us human. Recently memoir writing has
become popular and people, often with little writing expertise, post their memoir
online.
I was already a published author before writing my memoirs. After returning
from working in Africa as a teacher and journalist I was employed by Macmillan
Education to write text books for African schools. I was sent to South Sudan soon
after it became independent in 2011. Most of the teachers I worked with had fled
during the civil war. They were committed to writing the new syllabus, including
Social Studies which was my speciality. One of them said ‘Education is our last
weapon, perhaps the only one we have left.’
After my mother died I discovered she had begun to record her memories but
she left many questions unanswered. I felt a need to find out more about her
childhood in North Wales, particularly her father’s experience as a seaplane pilot in
the First World War. Her unfinished memoir was the inspiration for my novel ‘In the
Line of Duty’. In the interests of research I made several visits to the Conwy Valley as
well as the Fleet Air Arm, the Imperial War Museum and museums in Llandudno. My
family accompanied me on several of those trips and made their own memories. Like
many novels, my book is partly based on facts, both personal and political.
Context is important and I enjoy researching world events at the time,
including the weather. It is important that the reader feels the heat and shivers
slightly when reading descriptions of the cold.
I like to include maps in my books to establish a sense of place. Letters to and
from family are also an important part of my research and these are written in italics
so the different fonts alert the reader to a different ‘voice’.
I like to write chronologically. Where this isn’t appropriate I include ‘Flash
Back’ or ‘Flash Forward’ at the beginning or end of a chapter. The African memoirs
cover short time periods, four and six years, but my latest, Our School in the
Lincolnshire Wolds, covers fifteen eventful years.
Times have changed since my first memoir was published and we now have to
deal with the concept of Woke. Personally, I feel that it can restrict the use of
vocabulary that was acceptable in the era about which one is writing. Perhaps this is
a topic that can be discussed by our members.
Pub lunch
Saturday 4 March from 12.30, Oxford Blue, 32 Marston Street, OX4 1JU
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Having enjoyed our Christmas lunch in this conducive pub setting, let’s gather there again for a springtime pub lunch. Just turn up if you’re free!
Parking only at St Clements car park or Tesco in Cowley Road
Ukraine: caught between the great powers
Wednesday 22 February, 7 for 7.30pm, Pickstock Room, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, OX1 2JA
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We are fortunate to have two members who have specialist knowledge and views about the plight of Ukraine: John Gittings, ex China correspondent and leader writer of the Guardian, and Marcus Ferrar, ex Reuters and author of books about Eastern Europe. They will debate how Ukraine is faring in the current war, under the influence of great power politics.
Downstairs bar open 7-7.30 to purchase drinks; talk starts 7.30 prompt on 2nd floor; disabled access by lift.
Register with brendastones40@hotmail.com
Jane Rogers on scriptwriting
Wednesday 1 February, 5 for 5.30pm
Kellogg College, 60-62 Banbury Road, OX2 6PN
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The subtitle for this talk is: ‘how script writing can enliven your fiction and give renewed power to your prose’. Ex-WiO member Jane Rogers shares her professional experience on writing for different genres, with an emphasis on visual aspects and dialogue.
Tea served from 5pm; free entry for all.