Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Gill, Harry, Ian, Jan, Jenny, Jill, John, Michele, Suzanne.
Apologies: Jonathan, Kaz, Laura, Magda.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
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Matters Arising
Ian distributed copied of Chota Sahib ordered at the last meeting.
Suzanne offered for cash sale copied of her new book: Dancing in Heaven
Members’ Readings
Jill — continued reading her story about Roxanne, a city girl, cloistered on a Welsh farm which she hates. The children make a scarecrow, which becomes one of the family and does good duty in the field, until it is eventually discarded in sad ruin. A motorised digger is used to cut the turf for another vegetable patch. Roxanne takes to gardening and enjoys having her hands in the earth.
John — read his article Gothic Lithograph about the first Goth Weekend at Whitby. Tom gets a new camera and learns to use it to great effect.
Suzanne — distributed and read a piece entitled Wedding Breakfast. John (so far in the closet he’s in Narnia) is at the wedding of his sister, and has brought as his guest the narrator: his flatmate and crypto lover. A spinster of 70 introduces herself as “Al” and they have an intriguing conversation.
Ian — rebooted his scifi novel Anitra’s Petition, for which he now has a complete draft, badly in need of polishing. He distributed a one-page synopsis of the story so far, to give his foundering audience a straw to cling onto.
After frantic adventures Anitra has at last arrived on Mars, but as an illegal immigrant. Her alien relatives now attempt to smuggle her into their hidden fortress inside the Nix: the vast caldera of Olympus Mons.
Jan — has become a ghost writer (the meeting decided she could properly call herself a co-author). She has met an interesting lady in France, Alice, who wants to publish her childhood memoir, but is not a native English speaker. Alice was brought up off-grid in a Winnebago in Northern California (note for Brits: civilisation stops dead at San Francisco) which has left her lacking in essential skills for independent living in an urban world.
Harry — distributed copies of the continuation of his latest opus A Last Swing Of The Lamp. Sailors “swing the lamp” when they recall memorable nights-out ashore.
The Marwarri skirts the Gulf of Cadiz on her approach to the Straits of Gibraltar. The captain is on the bridge with the new cadet, exploring and improving his knowledge of seafaring geography in memorable ways.
Gill — The party of witches, astride the Great Serpent, have reached the Amazon rainforest. There they meet a bobble (a diminutive wizened remnant of a fallen cherub that escaped getting burnt up in the atmosphere) and encounter mole maggots – that can bore through simply anything, and metamorphose into bang beetles. We have yet to find out what those can do.
Michele — Dr Fryer attends the six year-old daughter of Mrs Pringle, a society lady he met at one of the Governor’s dinners. He diagnoses cystic fibrosis, then conflated with consumption (TB), for which he prescribes strict hygiene and a regime of herbal remedies.
The meeting closed at 1:10 PM.
Links (in accession order)…
Chota Sahib www.whitbywriters.com/chota-sahib-youve-had-a-busy-day
La Rosa Hotel www.whitbywriters.com/venue
Suzanne www.whitbywriters.com/suzanne-elvidge
Dancing In Heaven https://whitbywriters.com/2025/11/14/dancing-in-heaven-scarborough-launch/
Ian www.whitbywriters.com/ian-clark
Anitra’s Petition www.whitbywriters.com/anitra-the-story-so-far
Harry www.whitbywriters.com/harry-nicholson
Whitby Writers Group 