The November meeting will be on Wednesday 29th at Blackwell’s Book Shop, 48-51 Broad St, Oxford OX1 3BQ. 7-9pm
Mavis Curtis, author of The WI: a Centenary History and What the Suffragists did next, talks about how she became interested in local history and in particular women’s history and how it took her 79 years to get a book published.
Her writing career began when she was in her forties and tried, without success, to write a Mills and Boon novel, though she did get two short stories published in People’s Friend. Much later it continued with a three volume thesis on children’s oral tradition, which earned her a PhD, but didn’t teach her how to select her material or précis what she’d discovered.
In Oxford she learned to focus her writing by composing articles for the Oxford Times Limited Edition about the history of Elsfield, the village where she lives and former home of John Buchan.
Her discovery of the remarkable but unremarked stories of women in the early days of women’s colleges in Oxford, in particular the Brown Books of Lady Margaret Hall, made her want to bring these stories to a wider audience, a goal which she has finally managed to achieve.
This promises to be a very interesting talk so please come and support Mavis and bring your friends. This meeting is free for guests.
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.
My bio:
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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One thought on “November Meeting: Mavis Curtis, author of What the Suffragists did next, talks about her second career as a writer”
Dear All
I am very sorry to be missing tonight’s meeting- it sounds so interesting. Unfortunately I have come down with a heavy cold and don’t want to infect anybody.
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and I hope to see you in the New Year.
The Oxford Editors Writing Group 
Dear All
I am very sorry to be missing tonight’s meeting- it sounds so interesting. Unfortunately I have come down with a heavy cold and don’t want to infect anybody.
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and I hope to see you in the New Year.
Regards Katrina