After a year plus of relative chaos, Poole Writers Circle now have a programme of meetings that is 'stable' enough to post on-line. A second hurdle has also been tackled in that this website was designed with fancy "Next Meeting" and "Next Contest" displays, one on each side column of the Home page. The interface used to update these fancy displays is very very 'clunky.' Indeed it would be far easier just to maintain a simple list of forthcoming meetings but unless our web-master removes these fancy displays, it is probably best to stick using them, 'clunks' and all.

And now, not only do we have a publishable programme but it has also negotiated the clunks and been entered into the machine. So for PWC meetings, see the display on right-hand column on Home page, and for Internal Contest deadlines, see the left-hand column. (For those unfamiliar with PWC internal contest deadlines, the term 'deadline' is usually applied extremely loosely by the PWC members submitting entries.)

It is perhaps worth explaining the main reason for the “relative chaos” in PWC's programme. We had hoped to have as a guest speaker the much published writer of histories WB Bartlett. When I approached WB on this matter he said “Of course, MA old chap. I'd be delighted.” Unfortunately WB is a very busy man and our poor Programme Secretary would get messages from WB to say he was stuck in Mongolia or the Philippines or somewhere and could we postpone his talk.

Sadly we have yet to host WB as a guest, sad because you can take it from me - his experiences of the publishing world are both interesting and useful.

So booking WB Bartlett as a guest speaker has been a bit of a disaster for PWC, not unlike the subject matter of WB's latest book Titanic: Nine hours to hell. The survivors' story. The subject is not WB's usual fare (his subjects are usually military and/or mediaeval) but I must say it's a cracking good (and original) slant on the (much-trampled) Titanic story. A good read? As the Independent review (linked above) said "...quite the best and most level-headed telling of the whole (Titanic) story I have ever read." And the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic is next year, so Wayne (sorry WB) is most timely with this book publication.

It's just a shame his timeliness proved so difficult when it came to the PWC talk. I would try to set him up as a guest speaker again but I'm worried that chaos might again result within the PWC Programme.

[UPDATE - Just to emphasis how busy this WB can be, after posting this item, WB replied to an e-mail sent telling him he was being written about here. WB relpied "from a snow-bound Tblisi" while awating a flight to Johannesberg!]