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Chairman: Ken Baker
Membership Secretary: John Vallender (Tel. 01424 421283)
Website: www.hastingswriters.co.uk

Our group was established in 1947 so this year, 2007, we are proud to be celebrating our Diamond Anniversary. We can boast the late Catherine Cookson as a founder member and she was also our patron for many years.

Our membership is currently somewhere around the 35 mark. We are a friendly crowd with wide-ranging interests, some of us published, some still aspiring to be. Meetings are held fortnightly on Monday evenings.

We are an active group, running a national short story competition, the The Legend Writing Award ,and also producing an annual anthology, Strandline.

The Legend Writing Award particularly aims to encourage new writers in the UK and is for open-theme short stories up to 2,000 words. For 2007 we are offering four additional prizes, making it especially attractive: 1st £500, 2nd £250, 3rd £100, Runners-up
3 x £50 and Commended 4 x £25. Closing date is 31 August 2007 and entry fee £5. The competition was established in 2001 by our former patron, best-selling author David Gemmell, who sadly died last year. The competition is named after his first, and favourite, award-winning book. Full rules and entry form are available on our competition website www.legendwritingaward.com or send S.A.E. to
LWA, 39 Emmanuel Road, Hastings TN34 3LB.

Strandline has become an established and popular anthology, showcasing the work of Hastings’ Writers’ Group. It contains an imaginative and creative mix of prose and poetry and also now include winning entries from the Legend Writing Award. We are very proud that previous volumes of Strandline have won national awards: Volume 3 won the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust anthology award and Volume 4 won the NAWG Denise Robertson Trophy for the best writers’ group anthology. Our latest, Strandline Volume 6, is available at £7.50, post-free, from HWG, 39 Emmanuel Road, Hastings, TN34 3LB. Cheques should be made payable to Hastings Writers' Group. We are currently working on Volume 7, with a publication date aimed at late November.

To mark our Diamond Anniversary year we have compiled and published an extra and separate charity anthology Diamonds – A Collection of Childhood Memories. Sixty adults and six children, ranging from senior citizens to a seven-year old, have contributed a rich variety of reminiscences. They encompass memories of wartime, the Coronation, school, family life, friends, activities, coping with a disability, living abroad, growing up and childhood today. Sales will benefit three charities working with children who are in care, visually impaired or who have life-limiting illnesses. This is available at £6.50 post free (optional additional donations of £1 towards p & p will mean more for the charities) from HWG, 39 Emmanuel Road, Hastings, TN34 3LB. Cheques to be payable to Hastings Writers’ Group – Diamond a/c.

For more details about us, our activities and our publications please visit our website www.hastingswriters.co.uk

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