Thanks to Eric for preparing these notes. Apologies that I wasn’t able to attend but I was triple booked with a visit to see my eldest son’s GCSE drama presentation taking precedence.
A short meeting today. Very few pieces in the Dropbox but still enough to hold a meeting. Unseasonal weather may have contributed. We would like to welcome Alice who was attending for the first time.
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Another busy meeting this week with 14 people attending and six submissions to critique. We managed to discuss three submissions so the other three will pass over to the next meeting. Because of this we will have a temporary embargo on new submissions until after the next Tuesday meeting to allow us to clear the backlog.
Before we get started with the critiques I wanted to mention a discussion we had at the end of the meeting about the increasing number of members and submissions. We obviously had another busy month. Do we let this continue? Is this just a temporary spike? Are we OK with the current system? Is a seven submission maximum still acceptable? Should we limit the critiques somehow: a limited amount of time per critique, for example?
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Hi everyone! We’re all very busy with Mancunicon right now so here’s a quick set of notes from Tuesday’s meeting…
On with the critiques! Continue reading
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Another great meeting last night with 11 attendees and 5 pieces to crit. I think everyone was in agreement that this was a very strong dropbox, and we managed to get through all five (albeit one was at the pub!). Also, for the first time I believe, we had more female members in attendance than male! Hopefully this is a sign of more gender-balanced times to come for the group!
On to the crits: Continue reading
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My thanks to Luke for taking the following notes:
It was a quiet night at the group this week with only two pieces being critiqued. A massive welcome to Peter and Angela who were joining us for the first time — we’re normally busier than this guys, honest! Continue reading
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Hello again everyone! Another excellent meeting last night with 12 people attending and three stories to critique. Eric sent his apologies, he was ill and unable to attend, so we will bump his submission to the next meeting on Tuesday 23rd February.
Before we get started I just want to pass on the enthusiasm expressed by Eliza and a number of our attendees (myself included) that last night saw our first meeting with the majority of submissions from female members. In fact with Eric’s absence that majority turned into a neat 100%. This is, I believe, a step in the right direction. Who knows, perhaps one year we will look back over the preceding months to see something of a 50/50 average.
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Happy New Year everyone! We had another great meeting last week with three submissions and 10 attendees. In previous years this has often been a very quiet time of year but this is the second January in a row that we’ve hit double figures. We rock!
Before I get started with the critiques I just want to mention the Revolutions anthology. It’s doing really well! We are selling actual copies! We would really appreciate some boost to the signal on either Facebook or Twitter or your chosen social media platform. Word of mouth goes a long way. A glowing Amazon review would be awesome! Here are a few links if you’re looking for an easy share…
A tweet from Craig:
https://twitter.com/craig_pay/status/687030642035523584
A blog post from Graeme:
http://graemeshimmin.com/revolutions-speculative-short-stories-set-manchester
Another tweet from Eric:
https://twitter.com/EISteele/status/679165809948762112
Revolutions is available to buy from Amazon in either paper or Kindle format.
On with the critiques! Continue reading
Merry Christmas everyone! Last night was our final meeting of the year. We had eleven people attending and five submissions to critique. There was a bountiful supply of mince pies, mulled wine, orange juice, carrot cake and some rather spicy home-made tuna snacks. We also had a surprise visit from the MadLab Mouse. High drama! We completed the critiques on four submissions so Ian’s piece will carry over to the next Tuesday meeting in January.
Before I get started with the critiques I just want to repeat the announcement made on Facebook yesterday that we have just donated £90 to MadLab. These are your donations from throughout the last year, so well done to everyone who was able to give money in these financially challenging times. And please don’t worry if you weren’t able to donate. You can always help MadLab by boosting the signal for their revenue earning courses during the coming year with a share here or tweet there:
Courses: http://madlab.org.uk/courses/
MadLab’s twitter account: https://twitter.com/madlabuk
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We are very pleased to announce the release of Revolutions anthology, a collection of seventeen speculative fiction short stories set in and around Manchester. This eclectic mix of science-fiction, horror, dystopian and plain weird stories has one thing in common: being set in the capital of the North.
We would again like to thank all the many authors who submitted stories, we simply didn’t have enough space to include every single one. We are very pleased with the end result. This anthology has certainly exceeded our expectations!
Apologies for missing yet another meeting due to illness this time. Excuses, excuses. I would say ‘see you at the next one’ but who knows, perhaps I’ll be abducted by aliens this time!
Thanks to Eliza for taking the following notes . . .
Twelve members attended the group on the dreary Wednesday night at MadLab. We managed to get through 4 pieces with Emma’s “Westralia” being the only one left for the next meeting. Continue reading
