The Burford Festival

OWG members Mary Cavanagh and Jane Gordon-Cumming, together with Adrienne Dines, took part in a 'Meet the Author' session at the Burford Festival on Friday. Despite the weather, there was a reasonable audience, many of whom were writers themselves. We were introduced by the chairman, Anne Youngson, and read extracts from The Crowded Bed and A Proper Family Christmas and talked about how they came to be written, which led to a more general discussion on how to get published, and the benefits of writers' groups. Sadly we had to tell would-be members that the OWG is currently full. Afterwards Mary Anderson sold copies of our books from a Red Lion Bookshop stall.

This event was a first for the Buford Festival and we hope its success will encourage them to invite us back to the next one in two years' time.

Oxford Writers' Group at the Museum of Oxford

Several of our members will be taking part in events at the Museum of Oxford over the Summer. Check out the Museum's website for details: www.museumofoxford.org.uk/display.php?sectionid=4&page=37

The Oxford Writers' Group

For our first post, let me introduce the Oxford Writers' Group, - the real OWG, that is. We were horrified recently to discover that some other group had set up a website in our name. Our group was founded over 25 years ago now and has been going from strength to strength ever since. You may have read the article about us in the Oxford Times last year. We are a group of published and yet-to-be published writers, who meet on alternate Tuesday evenings in members' houses, where we take it in turns to read out some of our current work for general comment and constructive criticism. I should say at the start, however, that we cannot take any new members at present, due to pressure of numbers.

Past members include Veronica Stallwood, Linda Taylor and Catherine Fox. Present ones include published novelists Mary Cavanagh (The Crowded Bed), Jane Gordon-Cumming (A Proper Family Christmas), Alison Hoblyn (The Scent of Water), Margaret Pelling (Work for Four Hands) and Helen Rappaport (Dark Hears of Chicago, with William Horwood). Members have also published poetry collections and non-fiction.

Last year some of us produced our own anthology of short stories under the OxPens imprint: 'The Sixpenny Debt' and Other Oxford Stories.

You can read a bit more about us and our work on my website: www.janegordoncumming.co.uk