The next meeting of Group 2012 will be held on Wednesday 15 August, Blackwell bookshop, Broad Street at 7pm.
We will have manuscript feedback with authors, including Dennis Hamley. Bring your writing (about 500 words) and be prepared to read it aloud to a small group – we will split into groups of about 4-5 people.
There will also be a short book pitch session for those who would like to practice this very important skill.
Non-members are always welcome, but for non-members there will be a small entry fee: details in the About Group 2012 page.
We look forward to seeing many of you there.
Masterclass with Anne Cleeves
We will also meet on Thursday 16 August with crime writer Ann Cleeves, who will run a writing masterclass.
Ann Cleeves won the inaugural Duncan Lawrie Dagger, the richest crime-writing prize in the world, for her novel Raven Black.
Her Vera Stanhope novels have been dramatized as the TV detective series Vera.
Please send us questions and suggestions so we can pass them on to Ann. This meeting will also be in Blackwell bookshop at 7pm.
I started The Oxford Editors in 2007 to help writers at every stage and in every genre. We have a strong academic tradition as well as working with writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We also help children's writers, playwrights, screen writers and business writers.
We offer a wide set of services for writers from mentoring, manuscript assessment, copy editing, proof reading, ghost writing, query letter writing, literary agent search, and much more. We will write your blog for you, perfect that speech or help you self-publish that book. If you write, our team of published authors, publishing industry experts and academics can help you.
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I am an award-winning writer and editor working on academic, non-fiction and fiction manuscripts. I regularly work with fiction and children’s writers as well as doctoral students. I have also edited books and papers for academics throughout the world, and for many authors at publishers including Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press and Yale University Press. I have also guided many writers of fiction to publishing success. I am an author, ghost writer and an international journalist. After the publication of my book, Unveiled: Love and Death Among the Ayatollahs, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei condemned me as ‘a notorious man-hater’ for the book’s strong attack on the violation of women’s rights in Iran.
I also work with writers as a mentor and I have guided authors of fiction, non-fiction and academic works. My latest book, a crime thriller, will be published soon.
I worked for many years at The Financial Times, The Independent and The Guardian and has been a regular contributor to The Economist. I have also written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post and many other newspapers and magazines worldwide. I have appeared on the BBC – including Radio 4’s the Today programme and on Newsnight.
I have edited several major academic studies, and also edited books by professors at Oxford and Harvard – among others. As well as writing fiction for adults and children. I have also written several screenplays.
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5 thoughts on “Two meetings in August (at Blackwell’s bookshop)”
What sort of basic direction do you/Ann envisage this taking? Would she like to base it on an ad hoc exercise that we do then and there? Or perhaps we might bring stuff we’re having troubles with? Or is that too much like a surgery? Or perhaps she might give us a bit of plot – even a piece out of one of her novels? – and get us to work up ‘what happens next’ for her to critique? My memory of masterclasses in other discinplines (singing springs to mind) is that something needs to be created then and there to provide examples to work on. What do others think?
I think we keep Anne’s session as a very informal affair after her talk, so you can take up anything that she discusses and get more detailed help from her. The Wednesday session will be more of a feedback on specific writing in groups.
We have also had a great offer from a film maker to adapt one short story into a short film which will go onto the internet and also be shown at the cinema on the Cowley Road. He will do a short presentation and then give you his contact details, but if anyone has a short story to bring along, then strike while the iron is hot.
With regard to Wed 15th Aug, I mentioned at the July meeting about bringing our self-published work for people to look at. Hope that’s alright to bring my self-produced booklets of short stories and poems for inspection and sale, and I hope that others will do the same!
I think we keep Anne’s session as a very informal affair after her talk, where you can take up anything that she discusses and get more detailed help from her. The Wednesday session will be more of a feedback on specific writing in groups.
We have also had a great offer from a film maker to adapt one short story into a short film which will go onto the internet and also be shown at the cinema on the Cowley Road. He will do a short presentation and then give you his contact details, but if anyone has a short story to bring along, then strike while the iron is hot.
If anyone would like to practice the elevator pitch again, we will have a pitch group on Wednesday.
The Oxford Editors Writing Group 
What sort of basic direction do you/Ann envisage this taking? Would she like to base it on an ad hoc exercise that we do then and there? Or perhaps we might bring stuff we’re having troubles with? Or is that too much like a surgery? Or perhaps she might give us a bit of plot – even a piece out of one of her novels? – and get us to work up ‘what happens next’ for her to critique? My memory of masterclasses in other discinplines (singing springs to mind) is that something needs to be created then and there to provide examples to work on. What do others think?
I think we keep Anne’s session as a very informal affair after her talk, so you can take up anything that she discusses and get more detailed help from her. The Wednesday session will be more of a feedback on specific writing in groups.
We have also had a great offer from a film maker to adapt one short story into a short film which will go onto the internet and also be shown at the cinema on the Cowley Road. He will do a short presentation and then give you his contact details, but if anyone has a short story to bring along, then strike while the iron is hot.
I agree with Judi, could you let us know what we should do in terms of prep for Ann’s workshop
With regard to Wed 15th Aug, I mentioned at the July meeting about bringing our self-published work for people to look at. Hope that’s alright to bring my self-produced booklets of short stories and poems for inspection and sale, and I hope that others will do the same!
I think we keep Anne’s session as a very informal affair after her talk, where you can take up anything that she discusses and get more detailed help from her. The Wednesday session will be more of a feedback on specific writing in groups.
We have also had a great offer from a film maker to adapt one short story into a short film which will go onto the internet and also be shown at the cinema on the Cowley Road. He will do a short presentation and then give you his contact details, but if anyone has a short story to bring along, then strike while the iron is hot.
If anyone would like to practice the elevator pitch again, we will have a pitch group on Wednesday.