Upcoming Events
5th May – Emily Pedder
Emily Pedder, founder of The Book Edit and writing course leader at City St Georges and The Novel Studio, will be talking to us about the editing process and how to get your manuscript agent-ready. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for FREE as part of your
2nd June – Sue Moorcroft
photo credit: Silvia Rosado Photography We are delighted to welcome Sue Moorcroft for a seminar on ‘Tricky Writing Bits’! Sunday Times bestselling author Sue Moorcroft joins us to explore how to overcome the ‘tricky’ bits of writing commonly encountered in the craft. The evening promises to be practical, insightful, and motivating. Attending
7th July – Alison Binney
Poet and teacher Alison Binney helps us dust off our metaphors and similes with a fun, friendly workshop. Even if you don’t think of yourself as “a poet,” you may discovertools that transform your prose. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for FREE as part of your
4th August – Robin Bennett-Freebairn
Robin Bennett-Freebairn is a local author of the fact-based What A Year To Be Born! series that offers insights into social history. Robin has successfully pioneered bookselling this “perfect birthday gift” on Etsy, a platform rarely associated with literature. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for FREE
Summer Social
The date for this is still to be decided, depending on the venue, which is usually the home of one of our members.
1st September – Julian Sedgwick
Julian Sedgwick is an award-winning children’s and YA author. His books draw deeply on East Asian culture. Tsunami Girl, a prose-manga hybrid, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2022. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for FREE as part of your membership. Our events start at
15th September – Flash Fiction Evening
We’re still running our popular flash fiction competition evening, but outside a General Meeting date to give the opportunity for more talks and workshops. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for FREE as part of your membership. Our events start at 7.30pm and are held at: Hartington
6th October – Short Story Anthology Launch 2026
We’re launching the next short story anthology – the 2025 launch was such a hit, we’re doing it again (with enough Prosecco this time!). We’re hoping to add a mini-workshop too. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for FREE as part of your membership. Our events start
3rd November – Kate Rhodes
Author and poet Kate Rhodes joins us to discuss her work, including the Isles of Scilly Mysteries – shortlisted for the Crime Novel of the Year Award 2018 as well as long-listed for the 2021 Dagger in the Library award. Attending in Person Members of Cambridge Writers may attend this event for
Where and When
Our monthly events are held at:
Hartington Grove Meeting House
91-93 Hartington Grove
Cambridge
CB1 7UB
Non-members are welcome to attend most events, at a charge of £3. Please contact our chairman if you would like to come along.
If members have any suggestions for speakers you would like to hear at our writers’ events, please contact our events officer.
Recent Events
3rd May – Deborah Balm
Deborah Balm is an audiobook narrator of fiction and non-fiction books. A relatable, contemporary native British female voice artist with a smidge of sass. Born in Yorkshire, she now lives in Cambridge after her career in software engineering took her from Leicester, to Basel, and on to Amsterdam. Her background in singing performance and musical theatre dovetailed perfectly with her
5th April – AGM (Online) – Members Only
Our Annual General Meeting will be held online this year, over Zoom. All members are encouraged to attend. It’s your chance to hear how the group is doing, understand more fully how it is run and put forth opinions on various subjects. Our Chairman, Harry Goode, will be sending out email invites to members closer to the date, so please
Routes to Publishing – 1st February 2022 (Online)
Online Workshop: Siobhan Carew will be hosting this workshop over Zoom on the various routes to publishing. Routes to Publishing There are two main routes to publishing: through a traditional agent/publisher, or by self-publishing. Within those choices, there are sub-choices. Few traditional publishers take on work directly. They usually prefer agents to act as intermediaries, filtering the wheat from the
1st March 2022 – Short Story Competition Results Evening (Online)
Our March meeting will take place online via Zoom, and will comprise the results of the Cambridge Writers 2022 short story competition. Our competition this year was judged by Andrew Cowan, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Since his first prize-winning novel Pig (1994), he’s written four more novels depicting people in provincial worlds. The theme
7th December 2021 – Giles Yeo
Giles Yeo is a geneticist with over 20 years’ experience dedicated to researching obesity and the brain control of food intake. His current research focuses on understanding how these pathways differ from person to person, and the influence of genetics in our relationship with food and eating habits. Giles will present his book, Gene Eating: The Science of Obesity and
2nd November 2021 – Sophie Hannah
Sophie Hannah is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling writer of crime fiction, published in forty-nine languages and fifty-one territories. Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide. In 2014, with the blessing of Agatha Christie’s family and estate, Sophie published a new Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, which was a bestseller in more than fifteen countries. She has since
5th October 2021 – Rosie Sykes
Rosie Sykes is a food writer and chef, living in London and Cambridge who was, at one time, Head Chef at Fitzbillies. She has cooked in the kitchens of some of Britain’s most celebrated chefs, including Joyce Molyneux, Shaun Hill and Alastair Little. Her critically acclaimed gastropub, The Sutton Arms in Smithfields, London, established her as one of the most
6th September 2021 – Professor Andrew Cowan
Andrew Cowan studied at the University of East Anglia, where he is now Director of Creative Writing and teaches on the Creative Writing MA. Since his acclaimed and prize winning first novel, Pig (1994), he wrote another four novels which depict people in provincial worlds; there is an interest in the domestic, in the mechanics of relationships when the blood-rush
1st June 2021 – Flash Fiction Competition
Competitors bring a printed copy of their anonymous entry to the meeting, word limit 250
4th May 2021 – Workshop
How do I blindside my reader without completely cheating them? How do I lay a trail of clues without my plot becoming predictable? This workshop is designed to help you answer those questions and more. We will be covering the five different types of foreshadowing, including Chekhov’s gun, prophecy, flashback, symbolic foreshadowing, and red herring, discussing examples in literature and