From Feedback to Publication
The latest Caversham Writers member to get published
In September 2020 Caversham Writers meetings were being held exclusively online via Zoom due to the Covid lockdowns. It was a tough time for so many of us, but our Wednesday evening Caversham Writers events were, for me, a welcome fixed point in the week around which I could centre myself.
Without the focus of preparing for and hosting these weekly events, I would have lost all sense of time. Every day seemed much like the last, all blurring into one. We were living in bubbles mandated to isolate us physically, but there were knock on effects mentally. The sense of being out of time with nothing to differentiate the days was one of those effects and it was a disturbing one.
With our lives narrowing down to our own homes and the bubbles we were allowed to form with our nearest and dearest, it was a real lifeline to have one area of my life actually expand.
When Caversham Writers was a local Meetup holding in-person events only, our membership was limited to those in our local catchment area of Berkshire. Nothing wrong with that, it’s what the Meetup website was designed to facilitate.
But as soon as we went online during the lockdown, the group’s profile was made visible to people beyond our postcode. And they started joining us - from the rest of the UK, from across Europe, and from all over the world.
It was fun to have the group founder Crystal Bourque with us again, having returned home to Toronto. It was great to hear from members in faraway places such as Myanmar and Bangladesh. And Nigeria.
In September 2020 we held a feedback event in which new member Ayotola Tehingbola presented a short story to the group called Rape of Paradise, which told the story of a young woman’s shocking and brutal upbringing in Delta State, and her aspirations for her education as a way into a different life.
It was a vivid and unflinching portrait of a life most of us in the group could never imagine and it touched us all deeply.
The following year Ayotola submitted another story to the group for feedback; this one was called Heavy Edgy Memories Of Phony Henchmen Organizing Bad Intentional Acts or; Rust.
If anything, this story was even more shocking, showing us a child’s traumatic loss of innocence - from her helplessness while witnessing her parents’ arguing, through to a violent roadside robbery. The young protagonist collects words she doesn’t yet understand, phonetically recording them in a notebook given to her by her father for her seventh birthday: “For all the words you can taste.”
I’m delighted to report that both of those stories appear in Ayotola’s first book, published here in the UK on June 4th by Jacaranda Books. It is an anthology of her short stories called Lagos Will Be Hard For You.
The collection includes stories previously published in The Common, Washington Square Review, Witness Magazine, and several that were nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.
I urge you to buy a copy - it’s available at all the usual outlets in the UK, including Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Amazon, Jacaranda Books, or you can do what I did and order from our local independent bookshop in Caversham, Fourbears Books.
Congratulations to Ayotola and also a big thank you to her for mentioning Caversham Writers in the acknowledgements: “for reading that first story during COVID and urging me on.”
The pleasure is all ours, Ayotola, and I cannot remember urging on anyone more deserving. It has become one of the great pleasures of running Caversham Writers over the years to hear from voices that I might not otherwise have heard, telling stories that have taught me so much and added to my understanding of the world. And it started with you.
Independent Bookshop Week 2026 - Starts Tomorrow!
Saturday 13th – Saturday 20th June
From the Books Are My Bag website:
Independent Bookshop Week is a celebration of independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland. It aims to highlight the vital role independent bookshops play in their communities, and to encourage consumers to shop for their summer reads with their local independent. The campaign was launched in 2006.
We are very lucky in Caversham to have the wonderful Fourbears Books. Alex and the team are so very supportive of the community in general and us at Caversham Writers in particular.
I thought we as a group should show some support in return, so I’ve organised a group Meetup for tomorrow - Saturday 13th June at 10.30AM.
Here’s the plan:
We’ll gather at Costa Coffee in St Martin’s Precinct in Caversham for coffee and a chat.
Then we troop round to Fourbears and buy a book!
Share your book purchases on social media tagging @booksaremybag and #IndieBookshopWeek (and @fourbearsbooks)
I’ve scheduled a Meetup event for you to register your attendance, details here:
Our Last Meeting
Prompt-Write Night - Cancelled
Apologies to all who signed up for this event that I had to cancel at relatively short notice.
Next Week's Meeting
Writeshare Night - Read Your Work To The Group (in person!)
Wednesday, June 17 · 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM BST
At this in-person event at Fourbears Books in Caversham, members have the opportunity to read out their work to the rest of the group and get some instant feedback.
**If you’re reading at the East Reading Festival on Sunday June 21st, this is a chance to practice and get a little feedback before the day**
Free To Join, Free To Attend
As you know Caversham Writers is free to join and free to attend and I want it to remain so. That doesn’t mean it is free to run, though. I organise the group meetings on Meetup.com who have seen fit to double the fees paid by group organisers over the last year.
This has led to many groups shutting down or moving platform. I like to think of Caversham Writers as a local group with a global reach and I want us to remain open to voices from all over the world. Meetup provides that global reach so I intend to stay there, but would welcome any contributions toward the costs of running the group.
So if you enjoy this free newsletter and our weekly free events, please consider helping out by buying me a coffee at the link below.
Thanks so much for sharing and a big congrats to you Ayotola! Well done. 😊🙂🙃
Amazing news!! Congrats, Ayotola.