A Safe Space to Fail - talking about writing groups with the Masterminds
The Masterminds were a writing group formed out of a course Sophia ran with Keren David at City Lit in 2016. They have been meeting ever since, occasionally mentored by Sophia, to workshop new work and support each other through the prepublished years. It was a pleasure to get four of them together for this episode, to talk about the group and what it means to them.
The ‘Masterminds’ name was actually suggested years ago by Christopher, who produces Prepublished. It’s a term commonly used for groups that get together to learn and share knowledge on a specialist subject. In this case: writing YA fiction. The group meets once a week or once a fortnight (online during lockdown) to workshop a couple of pieces and to be each other’s encouragement, writing conscience and inspiration. As you’ll hear, this was more necessary than ever at the time we spoke.
Thanks as always to Christopher Pett for production and editing.
Links:
City Lit: https://www.citylit.ac.uk/
British Library: https://www.bl.uk/
David Higham: https://www.davidhigham.co.uk/
Undiscovered Voices competition, run by SCBWI: https://www.undiscoveredvoices.com/
City Uni Novel Studio: https://www.city.ac.uk/study/courses/short-courses/courses/the-novel-studio/
Faber FAB Prize: https://www.fabprize.org/
Spread the Word: : https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/projects/london-writers-awards/
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