Latest Writing from HWC

Two Hertford Writers’ Circle members, Stuart Handysides and Nicky Phillips, have had their work published in national collections.

A poem by Nicky was accepted for publication in a new anthology ‘Heart Shoots’, launched in April in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Nicky’s work appears alongside poems by such names as Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds and Penelope Shuttle.

‘Heart Shoots’ ISBN 9781909357051 is available from the publishers: www.indigodreamsbookshop.com

by Nicky Phillips

by Nicky Phillips

by Derek Rogers

by Karen Skinner 

“They’re charging me with Manslaughter,” he said.

Harry blew into a plastic cup of machine coffee, and then changed his mind about drinking it.

“I honestly don’t know how it all happened, Liz, honestly I don’t.”

“All men lie,” my mother had once said.  “It’s all about how much you’re willing to forgive.”

“You do have a criminal past, Harry.  Look at it from their point of view.”

by Bryan Andrews

(Chapter One is available to read in Hertford Writers’ Circle Anthology, ENCOUNTERS)

Chapter Two - Rennes le Chateau

Their next stop was the little hilltop village of Rennes le Chateau, some 40 km away over the mountain which separated Montsegur country from the Corbieres. “What have you brought me here for?” demanded Claudine as she slammed the door of her hired silver Peugeot and surveyed the valley below, where Visigoths had built their now vanished city of Razes. 

by Karen Skinner

I had never heard of the murdered man before and I couldn’t explain how one of my business cards had come to be in his jacket pocket.

The deceased had been found by the catering staff who came to open the café in the grounds of the local zoo that morning.  He had been bludgeoned with a blunt instrument and the chimps had been let loose from their enclosure.

DI Boyle rolled his eyes skywards.

“Bad stuff just seems to happen to you, doesn’t it, Liz,”

by Kate Miller

Back in November I had a short play broadcast on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. It was one of a series of plays, the result of a collaboration between the BBC and Menagerie Theatre in Cambridge.

by Lynette Bishop

     “Come on. Choose.”

      I sipped my cooling latte and laughed nervously. He was just kidding, right?

      “Come on, Amanda. Just do it.” He drummed his fingers on the empty mug in front of him, his gaze flickering from me to the busy street outside the café window.

     “Difficult,” I said, stalling.

by Derek G Rogers

Being English?…I'm not sure I can answer that, I wonder if anyone else can either. It seems to be something different for each and every person to whom you put the question. It is, I confess, something I have pondered for many, many years. The answers always differ according to the era to which it relates and the period in which the question is asked.