Writers circles

My local writers group began as a "Circle" in 1948. It removed "Circle" from its name decades ago because of the connotations that "Circle" had then. Those connotations are less scary now, and recent changes in the literary world make me wonder if it's time for a circle revival.

On "What Is a Writers Circle?" Katherine Payne writes "A writers circle has many similarities to a workshop group. Perhaps I’m putting too fine point on it, but for me, the name is significant. A “workshop” calls up images of an apprenticeship model where a master of a particular craft demonstrates and works with students as they develop proficiency and then mastery within that particular craft. For writing this is an important model and the backbone of the majority of creative writing programs. I in no way want to denigrate that model as I have benefited from it immensely and know many others who have as well.
But a “writers circle” calls up slightly different connotations. “Circle” is a flexible term that can refer to any group of people who associate with each other. It is freed from the apprenticeship model, as a circle implies equality and a bond shared among members. A geometry that can be turned in any direction. It also has feminist undertones, such as a “sewing circle” that might provide a space for consciousness raising among a group of women.

Fair enough, but I think circles have problematic connotations too. The word still puts off ambitious writers. To me, the word brings to mind a circle of chairs with their backs to the outside world. Artists groups have similar issues. The cliché about village Artists Circles is that they focus on portraits, landscapes, and still lifes as if Art ended at Impressionism. Members paint for themselves, and join a group so that they can paint for themselves better. Each year they exhibit their work in the village hall. When challenged, members (who aren't young) declare that they might not know much about art but they know what they like. This is an unfair description of some groups I know, but that cosiness/isolationism is always a risk with local creative groups, and difficult to reverse. The membership numbers might not decay, but the group members get ever fewer successes, and budding, prospective visitors won't come again.

What's wrong with people enjoying creating together? Nothing's wrong - I think each town/village should have such a group. After all, not every artist wants to be Tracey Emin. Not every jogger wants to break records - even their own ones. However, I think also that each town/city should have a group that engages with the rest of the world too, that acknowledges that Modernism happened, that tries to reach out beyond their bubble, their circle, that tries to make the mirrors they keep staring at into windows.

Decades ago I was asked by a group to give them a talk. The organiser was worried that the group was getting too cosy and felt unable himself to change the tone, wanting an outsider to shake things up. Much more recently, people from another group visited ours, saying that their own group has become too settled, too keen on tea and biscuits. Talking to writers at a residential conference this summer I concluded that local groups for ambitious writers are doomed, replaced by small, invitation-only Zoom groups who often ask prospective members for samples of work/critiques first.

I think Covid was the tipping point. During lockdown, more people started using online options to meet fellow writers. They discovered like-minded people online who they'd never have met at their local group, and questioned the benefits a local IRL group has over international ones. It looks to me that experienced writers (often the lifeblood of their groups) are abandoning local groups and are not being replaced. Local groups might consequently need to reposition themselves in the market - an opportunity? I hope so.

AI for writers again

Maybe the usual competition/magazine guidelines about AI (i.e. don’t use it at all) are becoming untenable. As AI becomes an ever more standard, useful tool, there'll come a time when competent writers are expected to use it, in the way that they already use spell-checkers and style-checkers.

The Bournemouth Writing Prize includes the following in its guidelines, which may show how things will be in the future -

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools (including generative text or image systems) is not permitted as a primary author of submitted work. AI tools may be ONLY be used for copyediting:

• The submission remains substantially the author’s own work, demonstrating clear human creative control and decision-making
• The work is not wholly or predominantly generated by AI
• Any use of AI tools is clearly declared at the point of submission

Authors must include a brief statement outlining any use of AI in the creation of their work. Failure to disclose AI use may result in disqualification or withdrawal of the submission. We reserve the right to reject submissions where AI use is deemed to undermine originality, authorship, or the integrity of the publication.

Tim Love on Goodreads

Searching for "Tim Love" (author) on Goodreads, these appeared on the first page of results -

• The Book That Gets Better With Age: Observations Through the Looking Glass of Aging by Tim Love
• Tim Love on the Lonesome Dove Trail by Tim Love
• The Medium is the Mirror: The Reformation of Truth Reshaping Our Relationships, Politics, and Sacred Beliefs by Tim Love et al
• Discovering Truth: How to Navigate between Fact & Fiction in an Overwhelming Social Media World by Tim Love et al
• I love Tim: Notebook / Journal / Diary - 6 x 9 inches (15,24 x 22,86 cm), 150 pages. For everyone who's in love with Tim by I Love Tim Publishing
• Urbanism Starter Kit by Tim Love

Needless to say, I wrote none of them. I wouldn't mind reading some of them though. My By All Means is there too. 1 review. 1 rating.

Glasgow

I visited Glasgow a few times during the Commonwealth games. The traffic cone hat has become a Glasgow symbol. The statue where it all began is outside the Museum of Modern Art

The cone idea has spread. This is Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The clouds were there all week. Each day it rained while Cambridge baked. It rained so hard at the athletics one evening (we were in an uncovered stand) that they offered us free tickets for the next day

I saw signs of several cultures. These images of Morocco - Marrakesh/Marrakech, Rabat, Tangier, Casablanca,Fes - were nostalgic. Scottish versions of pizza included haggis. Licensed breakfasts were served from 9 am.

And there are many murals. I liked this one on Hope Street.

Blog stats - 3 million hits

Some of my blogs have been around for a long time, together getting over 3 millions hits. My guess is that AI's thirst for training data has increased the number of accesses of late, so the recent bloat doesn't mean much. More interesting are the peaks when an old page becomes suddenly popular. Here's some data -

• Literary Reviews (2,240k hits). Top page - Reviews of short story collections
• Miscellaneous (876k hits) hits. Recently popular - Variety in poetry books
• Literary Articles (570k hits). Top page - Child narrators in adult fiction
• Literary Quotes (72k hits). Nothing particularly popular
• Teaching programming at University (56k hits). Nothing particularly popular
• By all means (27k hits). About my story book. Nothing particularly popular
• Moving parts (27k hits). About my poetry pamphlet. Nothing particularly popular
• Tim Loves Cricket (4k hits). About my computer game. Nothing particularly popular

Flash Festival Festival, 2026

So another Flash Fiction Festival is over. On the way to Bristol I popped into Tewkesbury and Chelmsford, both for the first time. As ever, there was a mix of first-timers and old-hands, of barely published and heavily published authors, all happy to talk with each other. Many countries were represented. Jude Higgins and her many helpers deserve all the praise they get for organising, and for setting the tone.

It's my 5th festival. On average I've had a Flash piece published each 2 months since my 1st festival, many not in dedicated Flash magazines. Much in the Flash world has changed since I first attended, and my writing's changed too. Very roughly -

• 2022 - I'd been writing/submitting Flash/micro pieces for a while with some success. I found out about the festival at short notice - so other people write flash too! And they wrote better things for a 10 minute exercise than I can do in weeks. But overall I thought my stuff wasn't too different from what was in the books on sale. The week following the Festival was exciting for me.
• 2023 - I worked at trying to understand more types of Flash/Micro pieces, especially in the prose-poetry direction - how far can you go without losing the flash element? I realised that my writing poetry and short stories complicated my production of Flash.
• 2024 - Now that I could appreciate more types of Flash, I realised I was quite a long way behind many of the other attendees. I got the impression that it was becoming easier for writers to get into Flash - more support material and Flash collections were available
• 2025 - I found I was trying to add as many types of Flash tricks as I could to each piece I wrote. A mess. Looking at the stats I realised I hadn't made much progress over the years. I'd hoped for an increase in volume of output even if the quality was the same.
• 2026 - I went to novella-in-flash sessions though I've no intention of writing one. I noticed that I'm sending Flash to the same magazines that I always have, so I'll try to widen my range.

I came back with -

• "One for the river" by Tom O'Brien (Ad Hoc, 2021)
• "Things like this" by Dave Alcock (Arroyo Seco Press, 2026)
• "A box of stars beneath the box" (National Flash-Fiction Day 2016 Anthology) by Calum Kerr, Nuala Ni Chonbchuir, Santino Prinzi (Cumbo Press, 2016)
• "Ripening" (National Flash-Fiction Day 2018 Anthology) by Santino Prinzi and Alison Powell (Cumbo Press, 2018)
• "Flash Fiction Festival eight" by Jude Higgins & Diane Simmons (AdHoc, 2025)

Poetic prose

Here's the first sentence of "All the Colors of the Dark" by Chris Whitaker -

From the flat roof of the kitchen Patch looked out through serried pin oaks and white pine to the loom of St. Francois Mountains that pressed the small town of Monta Clare into its shade no matter the season.

In The Republic of Letters Tyson Duffy writes "Just read the sentence aloud to feel in your mouth how awkward the words are together. By the time you reach the end, you attain a kind of empty-headed, Nirvana-like state of senseless bafflement". He asks "What is “loom of St. Francois Mountains”?" and "How is a small town pressed into its shade?"

When I read "Small Worlds", a novel by Caleb Azumah Nelson, I wondered about the poetic language. Generously, I thought that the narrator (a thoughtful 18 year old much of the time) might think that way. He likes spatializing emotion - "the way desire might spill into the space", "somewhere between content and melancholy", etc. Other examples of imagery and poetical phrasing include -

• Del's lips hold a brief home on my cheeks and we pull each other close. We give no goodbyes, we know death in its multitudes
• It's funny what you remember, what palaces you make to store the fragments
• I am the beach disappeared by the tide, I am the breath between two notes
• the way thunder asks you to check the sky for rain
• June veers towards July
• light clasps onto her neck
• shyness visits upon us
• it was the time of day when the sun was leaving the sky

I don't mind some of this, but some is more than purple prose - it's off the end of the colour spectrum. I don't think it's the kind of prose that poets (Plath, John Burnside, etc) write.