What we’re about
Welcome to the Chalk Scribblers.
We’re an international online group, and occasionally a rabble, of writers working on improving our skills. We run two types of activity to help each other achieve that:
Our core activity is our Saturday critique workshop. Once a week, we get together to discuss a story or part of a larger work that one of us has written. We exchange our opinions in a frank but constructive way that helps to develop not only the work being discussed but also the writing skills of the people giving and receiving the critique.
Our speaker events usually happen on Wednesday evenings, although they’re often subject to when the speaker can make it. The format is that we ask people who can tell us something about writing and publishing that we don’t know. Sometimes they’re authors, sometimes they’re publishing professionals, sometimes they’re people with expertise that can come in useful for writers and sometimes they’re our own members whose successes we want to celebrate.
Most of our events are free to join although some of our speaker events have cover charges that go toward our overheads.
Our members cover a broad range of fiction, creative non-fiction and screenwriting. However, we’re not the best group for poetry, songwriting and game writing.
Our activities are based on reciprocity between peers. If you’re looking for something more structured, we suggest the Indie Novella 9-week course which runs three times per year: https://www.indienovella.co.uk/writing-course
The group’s organisational structure is described here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WuhkZbzYRSTnS8URRx0SVKnwbpl0Fw9KZ-Q1uSEC2s0/edit?usp=sharing
If you’d like to see what it’s all about, sign up for an event and jump in.
Follow us on Twitter at @ChalkScribes
Follow us on Bluesky at @chalkscribblers.bsky.social
Publications by Chalk Scribblers in 2023
This year’s big success story was the anthology All Tomorrow’s Futures: Fictions that Disrupt, published by Cybersalon and edited by a team that included Chalk Scribblers Wendy Grossman, Stephen Oram and Eva Pascoe.
Available in hardback, paperback and kindle from Amazon.
Reviewed by Mary Branscombe in Vector.
It contains stories from no less than six Chalk Scribblers members:
Alex Buxton contributed:
- Update Needed
DJ Cockburn contributed:
- Milton Friedman’s Heresy
Wendy Grossman contributed:
- ELIJAH
- Heritage
Stephen Oram contributed:
- Ego Statistical
- See Me
Eva Pascoe contributed:
- Swipe Right
- Journey to Brindisfarne Abbey
Prashant Vaze contributed:
- Daylight Robbery
Other publications by Chalk Scribblers this year were:
Hugh McCormack saw his debut fiction publication:
- The Tome of the Watermelon Harvest appeared in the winter 2024 Dragon Gems anthology.
Stephen Oram found some time to do something other than work on All Tomorrow’s Futures:
- Is the Future of Justice Free, Fair, and Flawless? is an article published in the British Science Fiction Association’s Focus magazine as part of their ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ series.
Reaghan Reilly graduated with an MLitt in creative writing from Glasgow University.
Ana Sun continues her run of success in the world of short fiction:
- The Perpetual Metamorphosis of Primrose Close is a novelette that was published in issue 11 of Parsec.
- Night Fowls was published in World Weaver Press’s Solarpunk Creatures anthology.
- Anatomy of Emotion – The Carving of Chance – Seize the Moon was published in Luna Press’s Utopia of Us anthology.
- A Book of Architecture and Other Music appeared in Air and Nothingness Press’s Fathoms in the Earth anthology.
- This God's Request is Off the Menu appeared in the Inter Librarian Loan (vol. 2) anthology, also by Air and Nothingness.
- A Spell for Stardust was published in New Mythologies in Space, a limited edition newsletter by Flame Tree Press for the 2024 WorldCon in Glasgow and is available online.
Prashant Vaze has had a successful year in both fiction and non-fiction. In addition to his publication in All Tomorrow’s Futures mentioned above, his other 2024 credits were:
- The Food Fighters was published by Anthropocene Magazine as part of their Climate Parables series.
- For the Common Good appeared in the Stories from the Microbial World anthology, published by Habitat Press.
- You Never Give Me Your Money – Funding the Energy Transition in the Global South is a non-fiction article published by the Greenhouse Think Tank.
Upcoming events
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•OnlineChalk Scribbers meet the author: Lauren Grodstein
OnlineLauren Grodstein is the author of six novels including A Friend of the Family, which was a New York Times bestseller and Washington Post book of the year among other accolades. In her day job, she’s a professor of creative writing at Rutgers-University Camden.
She’ll open with a reading from her latest novel, A Dog in Georgia, and will go on to share her extensive knowledge of the craft and business of authorship with plenty of time for questions from the audience.
Although there is no charge for the session, there is an attendee limit so if you find you can't make it, please remember to change your RSVP so someone else can take your place.
Relevant links:
- Lauren’s website: https://www.laurengrodstein.com/
- Lauren’s faculty page: https://mfa.camden.rutgers.edu/faculty/
- Lauren on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/laurengrodstein.bsky.social
16 attendees
•OnlineChalk Scribblers meet the screen agent: Leah Middleton
OnlineJoin the Chalk Scribblers to meet Leah Middleton, a script agent at the Marjacq Agency.
Leah’s talks on screenwriting have become a regular fixture and as before, she’s offered to include a critique of treatments sent in advance in her talk with a promise to be constructive rather than eviscerating!
For that reason, please try to use a decent sized screen if you're attending. It may be difficult to see the screenshares properly on a phone.
If you'd like to put a treatment forward, please message David (the giraffe) for the email address to send it to. Do NOT send them direct to Leah as they will get lost in her slush. Please bear in mind that while the files will not be shared beyond Leah and the event hosts, the treatments will be screenshared, the discussion will be public and any slides that Leah prepares will be shared with the attendees.
Leah is willing to look at a maximum of five treatments. If more than five are submitted, she’ll choose the five that offer the most generally valuable points and if forced to choose between two, she’ll use whichever was submitted first.
Deadline for submissions is 7pm on Wednesday 5th November.
You can improve your chances of having your treatment selected by doing some online research on what makes a good treatment.
Please read and follow ALL of Leah's guidelines:
• Title (try to be original, and memorable)
• Name (or penname)
• Format (slot length and genre)
• Logline (no more than two cracking sentences that sum up the main conflict of the programme)
• Short summary that intros the world and main character(s) arcs (one or two paragraphs)
• One line character bios for each main character
• Longer synopsis that fills out the characters as it goes. If you are writing a film think of the act structure as a guide to writing the synopsis. If you're writing a TV series then structuring your synopsis by episode can be helpful in making it sensical. It can also help you see whether you have enough plot for that many hours of television! And remember, writers always want to leave their reader wanting more, but you need to outline the entire plot; if you have a brilliant twist that the whole thing hangs on (think The Sixth Sense) revealing it in the treatment could be the difference between getting a commission, and not.Length: 2-3 pages.
Format: PDF or .docLeah represents all genres and is happy to see scripts from all genres, but has offered the following tips to anyone keen to get the most out of their writing and of the session:
'The main thing I would encourage your writers to do is really challenge themselves to offer characters and narrative arcs that feel original. I see a lot of very competent scripts in my line of work, but oftentimes we're treading very familiar territory, and it can be hard for writers to stand out if they're ploughing an already well-ploughed furrow. An example of this is using withholding as a device to create tension, but the pace of plotting in today's scripts is very fast and withholding can limit a writer to just one big reveal moment, rather than delivering a number twists. So be aware of where you might be using withholding, and then ask yourself what your script would look like if you told us more swiftly what the secret is? Dealing with the fallout of a secret can generate a lot more conflict and plot than building to the reveal of a secret is able to do.
There is only one thing that I really don't want to see in a script, and that is needless over-sexualisation of female characters. I mention it specifically because I see it on an almost daily basis in my submissions pile, particularly from young male writers. So no female characters working in the sex industry unless it is absolutely fundamental to your story (it rarely is); no casting of female characters in scene directions (e.g. hair colour/eye colour/level of attractiveness) unless what they look like is a key plot point (it rarely is); and any female character over the age of 18 is a 'woman' not a 'girl'.'
Submissions should be in PDF or .doc format.
Although there is no charge for the session, there is an attendee limit so if you find you can't make it, please remember to change your RSVP so someone else can take your place.
Leah’s profile: https://www.marjacq.com/leah-middleton.html
19 attendees
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