"Sherwood is almost synonymous with Nottingham and Nottingham with writing." That's how Frances Thimann, a short story writer and member of the SherWords writing group, traces the link between the Nottingham area and the act of writing. This connection remains very much alive today in SherWords, a friendly, collaborative writing group rooted in the local community and sustained by their passion for literature...
As a UNESCO City of Literature, Nottingham has a rich literary past and, thanks to initiatives such as SherWords, a truly thriving literary present. Emanating from a chance-encounter at a pub between two NTU alumni and a post on a local Facebook group, SherWords is a community of writers that was created around two years ago. The group meets once a month, turning writing – an activity often considered to be a solitary pursuit – into a social and collaborative one that brings together a diverse group of people from Sherwood and the surrounding area.
The aim of the group is to exchange ideas about writing and to discuss themes, techniques and form with fellow writers. To this end, members send one another excerpts from their pieces ahead of meetings, where they then provide constructive and positive feedback to fine-tune their texts. When I met with some of SherWords' members, they joked about how passionate their discussions could become over the mention of semicolons or the Oxford comma. SherWords seems to be a very supportive space, one that combines community, shared interests, encouragement and a real passion for literature and the written word.
Not only do members differ in their approach to punctuation, but also in their writing ambitions, areas of interest, and in what inspires them to put pen to paper. Some, including Clare Stevens, Frances Thimann and David Parkin are published novelists and short story writers, Rosemary Wels is known locally as a visual artist, and others in the group write for leisure, or simply because it is what they do. It was also interesting to hear that, thanks to the group and discussions with other writers, mere ideas had been fleshed out to become novellas, and short stories had expanded into fully-fledged novels.
SherWords members engage with a wide variety of genres in written and artistic forms, from fantasy to illustrated poetry, comic verse to children's literature. One of SherWords' fortes is certainly the many approaches its members take and the plurality of their interests, which is what enables them to offer new perspectives on one another's work, to fine-tune ideas and improve style and narrative.
SherWords is a community project, and this is evident in so much of the work they do. They most recently participated in Sherwood Art Week, an exhibition where they showcased their work, held readings and manned a bookstall. The group are always eager to taking part in community events and help others to share in their love of literature.
If you'd like to learn more about the group, you are welcome to get in touch with SherWords here.
You can also explore the work of several of the group's members:
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