Creative Writing Before and During Inspeximus - Plymouth and South Devon

I founded Plymouth Proprietary Library Writers Group in 2009.  A literary diamond in the city which doesn't get the attention it deserves.  However, working full time means that any voluntary work (i.e. for library committee ... read unpaid charity work ... and the rapidly growing PPL Writers Group) is limited.  I gave up sitting on the library committee as certain traditional ideas were different to mine.  Never mind; we all move on.  The Plymouth Proprietary Library Writers Group apparently continues to thrive and has now moved into the Plymouth Arts Centre.  I sincerely wish them well.  I rarely spend much time in Plymouth these days unless I have to.

Occasionally I dabble with competitions for poetry and short stories.  Admittedly not as often as I would like to, as the day job gets in the way.  A brief summary of results found in my shambolic filing system is as follows:

2010         National Association of Writers Groups        Runner Up for the Ten Minute Radio Play
with:  THE LAIRA QUATRAIN   (Play)

2010         Delivered Magazine                                  
with:  AN ODE TO WOOLWORTHS (Poem)

2010         Graffiti Short Story Competition                    Shortlisted
with:  GOING HOME (Short Story)

2011         The Herald Plymouth
with:  POETRY PUBLISHED

2011         Poetry Rivals 2011
with:  A CLOCK STRIKES THIRTEEN (Poem)

2012         West Country Writers Association                 Third Prize - event held in Bath, Somerset.
with:  CONTINUUM (Short Story)

2012         Write Around Totnes
with:  THE TOTNES ODYSSEY (Poem)

2012         The Stephen Spender Prize for Translation
with:  THEOCRITUS - (Translation of a pattern poem from the original Classical Greek into contemporary English)                                                     Commended by Professor Edith Hall

2013        United Press
with:  SUNRISE OVER LAIRA MILL (Poem)

2013        EXCite Poetry Festival of Exeter
with:  FORMULA ONE FERN (Poem)                          Shortlisted

2013       Literature Works
with:  NUMBERS (Poem)                                               Published on Literature Works website

2013       Wells Festival of Literature                              Shortlisted
with:  PTERIDOMANIA (Short Story)

2014       The Great British Write Off
with:  RIVER ERME:  DEVON (Poem)

2014      The Yeovil Literary Prize                                  Commended by Judge Annie Freud
with:  FORMULA ONE FERN (Poem)

2014      Fylde Brighter Writers Competition
with:  COFFEE (Poem)                                                   Shortlisted

2015      The Sentinel Annual Short Story Competition  Second Prize
with:  JAIL GRAIL (Short Story)

2015      Carillon Magazine                                             Shortlisted
with:  MISTAKEN IDENTITY (Short Story)


Top Tip:  never take entering competitions seriously.  As someone who has been involved in the judging process, choosing a winner isn't easy and will vacillate considerably depending on who is in your panel of judges.  Supporting competitions as and when you can is important for creative writing as a whole.  But then, not easy for those of us working full time ... so just treat it as a fun hobby but nothing more.

Inspeximus:  Poetry from the Manors of the Roborough Hundred was written over a long period of time and I had no deadline to publish it by, so it was possible to write on other themes occasionally.

The Story So Far ... Inspeximus

Grateful thanks to everyone for the interest in the book.  I'm now being asked what I'm working on next.  Well, I'm always working on or with something and my work does take time but I don't talk about it when it's 'work in progress'.  A piece of art grows gradually; writers, painters, musicians etc always have to let their creations evolve from within.  I don't consider it something technical enough to be clinically planned out in advance and bolted together.  If any 'bolting together' is done, its usually at the very end in the final editing process.  From the beginning and for a large part of the book's evolution, you enjoy 'it' finding it's own way out and upwards.  It is similar to nurturing a plant.  You keep it warm, water it and watch it shoot.  The green shoots don't always spring up where you expect them to.

Marketing a book takes time and patience - it also brings a few surprises.  I was delighted that Waterstones Plymouth and Lee Furneaux Books in Tavistock have been selling copies.  Sales have also done well in the creative writing environment and with local history enthusiasts too, as Inspeximus is now being publicised in Totnes.  Interestingly Plymouth Arts Centre (where I was a member) weren't interested in selling copies.  So, I didn't renew my membership last month.  Support works both ways in business.

I was lucky to have the professional services of SilverWood Books in Bristol help me in the final editing and publishing process.  I can't recommend them enough.

Waterstones Drake Circus Plymouth stocking Inspeximus by Ruth Snell

Waterstones of Drake Circus in Plymouth are now stocking copies of Inspeximus: Poetry from the Manors of The Roborough Hundred by Ruth Snell.

Please see the Assistant Manager of Waterstones - Mr Martin Wright - for copies.

Lee Furneaux Books of Tavistock now stocking copies of Inspeximus

Lee Furneaux Books of Tavistock in Devon is now stocking copies of Inspeximus: Poetry from the Manors of The Roborough Hundred.

Inspeximus: Poetry from the Manors of The Roborough Hundred by Ruth Snell

Inspeximus:  Poetry from the Manors of The Roborough Hundred by Ruth Snell.  ISBN: 978-1-78132-302-1. Published by Silverwood Books of Bristol with a release date of 6 October 2014.

... Re-examines an area in south west Devon where the bustling community around Buckland Monachorum was once more heavily populated than any of the Plymouth manors.  Moving from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Norman Conquest and beyond, the unusual genre of weaving poetry from manorial and local history seeks to peer into the past through a searching tangent of the imagination.  Each manor had its own story to tell and was occupied and worked by colourful personalities.

Here in the early 21st century with so much destroyed by either war or development, a stop to pause and look by physically visiting former manorial sites and envisaging how people would have lived, offers a tangible breath of the past.