PENTLAND WRITERS' GROUP

Last year I was encouraged to enter a short story competition being run by a writing group I had formerly been a member of. It was the Pentland Writers' Group's way of celebrating 10 years as a group. I wanted to show support, but the competition was themed and I hadn't got anything that fitted. The pesky e-mail reminders for the approaching deadline kept appearing in my in-box, and eventually I caved in to the pressure and I sat down and wrote something. To my surprise my story was chosen as the overall winner. The story is called 'The Ten Loves of Lizzie Salt'.

As if it wasn't enough and already great to have won, I was invited to be a part of an event hosted last night by PWG. They put on another of their local and public readings together with songs and music from Gerda Stevenson and the Carlops Jazz Group. The weather was atrocious and that is always a concern. It was lashing rain when I left the house. I hoped, for the group, that this would not put a damper on things!

I needn't have worried. The reading took place in the Carlops village hall and it was what might be described as 'stowed out'. They had to get extra chairs to accomodate everybody in the hall! The audience was entertained by poetry and stories from members of the writers' group - and there were some very good new voices there (new to me) as well as some warmly familiar, and also good, older voices. And there was music and song - beautiful songs in scots written by Gerda and fabulous music - to break up the readings. The interval offered wine and nibbles and a chance for the audience to buy the newly launched new anthology from the group.

I feel I was given the peachiest spot of all for I was the final reader. I always read my work out loud before sending it 'out there' - but reading it to oneself is a very different experience to reading it to someone else, and different again from reading it to a packed and appreciative audience. I had my eyes opened to my own story... like reading it and it is someone else's. I love performing and performing my own work is just icing on that cake. The audience enthused about the piece and I left the event with the warmest of glows - not simply because I was in love with the story again (as I was when I wrote it), but because writing in the area where I live seems to me to be in a healthier state now than ever.

A big warm thank you to everyone at Pentland Writers' Group (PWG) - for the competition without which I would not have birthed this story of mine; for picking me as overall winner; for inviting me to an event where I got the opportunity of sharing my story with a public audience; for including my work in their lovely anthology; and for the warm welcome I always receive from PWG. Thank you.