Fiction

**Walking Through Stories: Jane Austen & Watership Down Weekend** 📚🚶‍♀️ Explore the literary landscapes of Hampshire on this brand-new hotel-based walking weekend. With *single rooms* available, enjoy guided walks through the countryside that inspired Jane Austen and the classic tale *Watership Down*. 📍 **Location:** Hampshire 🔗 **Find out more and book here:** [https://www.largeoutdoors.com/walking-through-stories-jane-austen-watership-down-weekend](https://www.largeoutdoors.com/walking-through-stories-jane-austen-watership-down-weekend)

Meet up fee £7 to be paid at the beginning of the meet up. Card or cash payments. Meeting at Mikis Paradise Cafe. Please bring your favourite Tarot deck.

Join us for a weekly session of friendly and focussed writing time. Every Friday from 6pm. You'll find us inside Waterloo station: The Victory is on Balcony level, above main concourse. (Go to far north east end). There will be a sign at our table. ...... - We shut up for 1 hour of scheduled writing time - 6.30 to 7.30. Then time to chat or carry on at your preference. This is for writing of any description or experience level. Somewhere to get on with your own work, and connect with new people. Most importantly to not feel isolated in your pursuits, however big or small. If you're looking to further your writing interests; for a comfortable social space; ...or just need somewhere to sit and focus before you go home on a Friday - you're welcome to stop by. Please RSVP to give us an idea of who is coming / how many. ........ **6:00pm - 6:30pm** - Find our table and grab a seat. Plus any food or drink. - We'll take 5-10 minutes to say who we all are, and welcome anyone new. - (No need to say what you're working on, but feel welcome to). **6.30pm - 7.30pm** - No talking. One hour. - You can leave the table at any point. - Anyone arriving late feel free to find a seat, we'll give you a silent wave. You won't get glared at! **7.30pm** Once 'Shut Up' time is over: - You are welcome to head off straight away, no pressure to stick around. - You are welcome to stay to chat with other members, as late as you wish. - Or you are welcome to just keep writing - if you're in the zone, no need to stop just because others have. The time is for you, to get the most benefit. . **FACILITIES / ACCESS** The venue has step free access, via elevator and escalator, from main station concourse. Toilets are at far rear. Including private accessible toilet. **FOOD** The pub is also a restaurant. Food served all evening / including vegan options. You're welcome to eat whilst writing. **WI-FI** There is working Wi-Fi, if you need it - just sign in with your email. **DOG-FRIENDLY** Dogs are also welcome. . If you have additional queries about access, or other requirements, just message us via Meetup or contact The Victory directly. . **A note about the format** We don’t host readings and feedback. (But we can signpost to events that do). Whether you're writing for a professional goal, academic project, private thoughts and wellbeing, or purely casual enjoyment, (or still deciding!) - don't worry we won't be asking each other to share details. You can just arrive, make yourself comfortable with anything you need, and get on with whatever you decide. No-one will be reading your work or judging if you've met targets. We don't set group goals and deadlines: we're just here to help each other with our own - where needed. Or to switch off and talk about something else completely, if you need that instead! This is a social event and aimed at bringing new people together, not just a co-working space. **Respect** Please also note our Code of Conduct: [www.shutupwrite.com/code-of-conduct](https://www.shutupwrite.com/code-of-conduct) ...and be aware this is an informal event open to adults of all ages and backgrounds. We expect everyone who attends will treat each other with appropriate respect and awareness, and feel able to interact comfortably. Any concerns don't hesitate to raise them with us. For a full view of events, visit [https://shutupwrite.com](https://www.shutupwrite.com).

Get ready to network with fellow Indian professionals in London, share experiences, and make new connections at the 2026 Meetup! **\*YOU'RE INVITED! INDIAN PROFESSIONALS IN LONDON MEETUP\* 🇮🇳🕊️** 📅 **Date**: Friday, 16th Jan 2026 🕕 **Time**: 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM 📍 **Venue**: Mint Leaf London, Bank, 12 Angel Ct, London EC2R 7HB 👔 **Dress Code:** Smart Casual 📝 **RSVP**: Free registration online **Nearest Transport:** Bank & Liverpoool Street (Various Tube & TFL Lines) **Event inclusive:** Free Entry \| Open Mic \| Open Networking and Meetup **PAYG Food & Drinks** Come meet inspiring individuals, discover new opportunities, and be part of a growing professional community that celebrates culture, collaboration, and career growth. We look forward to seeing you there! Joydeep & Tushar

Host: Van \*This event is a collaboration with other groups and social networks and it will be well attended \*To attend this event you need to buy a ticket from [https://www.fatsoma.com/e/fphh92qc/happy-new-year-singles-social-party-in-holborn-with-complimentary-drink-happy-hour-all-ages](https://www.fatsoma.com/e/fphh92qc/happy-new-year-singles-social-party-in-holborn-with-complimentary-drink-happy-hour-all-ages) **What is better way to start 2026 rather than a group of single people mixing and mingling, partying and dancing, while keeping their eyes trying to spot that special one that will make their heart jump.** Whether you are looking for a partner or just to meet and connect with other people who are at the same phase of life, this is the event for you! You never know who you are going meet in this evening and that is the beauty of it! You may find a friend forever, a party buddy, a partner in crime or a partner in life! Since this is a mix and mingle and not a speed dating there is no age range- in a social pool everybody is welcome and you can choose to speak to whoever you fancy. Connect with like minded people and open your social circle, enjoy chatting about anything and everything, with those you like, for as long as you like If you find somebody who you think you have a connection with, dare to ask their contact details right then and there... like the old times ;) Oh! and you don't need to ask the awkward question: 'so are you single?' because they all will be! You are very welcome to attend alone or with friends. We will be there making introductions, helping break the ice,, and acting as a glue in the group. We have a reserved area where we can mix and mingle, so that everybody can relax and feel comfortable and we get to know each other. and then we are going to move on the dance floor! Simmons Holborn is a powerhouse of a cocktail bar. Situated slap bang in the Centre of London, it brushes shoulders with Tottenham Court Road, Covent Garden, and Oxford Street. With two floors of utter delinquency to explore and a gigantic DJ booth housed inside an 8-foot disco ball - it's kind of a big deal. The largest of the group's bars, the basement level takes inspiration from all the fun of the fair - sporting big-top style paintwork and walls lacquered with novelty circus posters. The upstairs is more typical of Simmons. Stacks of odds and sods line the venue like a shrine to the good old days. Drink cocktails out of Nanna's crockery and dance to live DJs spinning everything from 00s bops to R&B to soul, The program of the night is as follows : 7:00pm-9pm : Singles mixing and mingling 9pm: The music goes up and it is time for dancing. Everyone arriving before 9pm receives a token for a complimentary glass of prosecco Happy Hour till 9pm! Dress code is smart/ elegant/ Smart Casual (smart dark jeans are fine but ripped jeans, sportswear, trainers/sportshoes and hats are not allowed). For security reasons every guest must carry photographic ID with them (Driver’s License, European ID or Passport) independently of the age. If you wish to be welcomed and introduced to other people by the host please arrive before midnight How to find us: When you arrive please ask to be directed to Marianna's Events area/ Van. Any issue on the night feel free to contact Van: 07587546857 For general inquires or difficulties with your ticket booking feel free to e-mail us at benetoupromotions@gmail.com or call Marianna on: 07949526733 How to connect with us: Like and follow our facebook page: [https://www.facebook.com/mariannaland](https://www.facebook.com/mariannaland) Join our facebook group: [https://www.facebook.com/groups/453202104877514](https://www.facebook.com/groups/453202104877514) Follow us on twitter: [@Mariannasevents](http://mariannasevents/)

**28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE!** **Director:** Nia DaCosta **Cast:** Jack O'Connell, Ralph Fiennes, Erin Kellyman, Chi Lewis-Parry, Alfie Williams Expanding upon the world created by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland in 28 Years Later - but turning that world on its head - Nia DaCosta directs 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. In a continuation of the epic story, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) finds himself in a shocking new relationship - with consequences that could change the world as they know it - and Spike's (Alfie Williams) encounter with Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) becomes a nightmare he can't escape. In the world of The Bone Temple, the infected are no longer the greatest threat to survival - the inhumanity of the survivors can be stranger and more terrifying. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOwTdTZA8D8 Cinema: Crouch End Picturehouse. Schedule: The film starts at 6:00 pm We meet in the lobby after the film and head over to the Queens pub for drinks. I'll book a table under the name David! Address for the The Queens pub: 26 Broadway Parade, London N8 9DE If you have any questions, use the event chat in the meetup app. Or join our Whatsapp group: [https://chat.whatsapp.com/CqLyvsscZ8QCCtHAy9LrwI](https://chat.whatsapp.com/CqLyvsscZ8QCCtHAy9LrwI) The link will take you to a waiting room where you write your Meetup username. Once verified, you’ll receive the link to the main WhatsApp group. Book tickets: https://web.picturehouses.com/order/showtimes/024-75367/seats?_gl=1\*l3prug\*_gcl_au\*MTg2NTkyMzk1OC4xNzYyNzczMjMx

For the first meeting of 2026, we will read Andy Weir's 2022 novel, *Project Hail Mary*. 'Set in the near future, it centers on school teacher and former biologist Ryland Grace, who wakes up aboard a spacecraft afflicted with amnesia.' (Wikipedia) ''Charting the desperate last-chance mission of a lone astronaut to safeguard our planet, *Project Hail Mary* is a riveting interstellar adventure from the bestselling author of *The Martian*." -Waterstones https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493401-project-hail-mary The meeting will take place at The Folly on Gracechurch St (the weekend vibe there is quite different from the weekday evening one...). Join us for a delicious brunch/lunch as we dive into this sci-fi thriller! N.B. We will be charging an event fee of £3, non-refundable, to discourage no-shows and contribute to the running costs of the group. Please only sign up if you intend to come along as space is limited to make for an effective discussion!

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/a/a/2/event_234563202.jpeg This series of games has been transferred to our new platform! Register today for free on www.footyaddicts.com Any problems, questions, comments please do not hesitate to contact us on info@footyaddicts.com or kos@footyaddicts.com

Chetori! Come and join us for drinks and a dance at our first get together in January for our Shab-e Shanbeh. Persian speakers and non-Persian speakers are welcome. We are gathering at The Bar in Montcalm hotel, ground floor, but we’ll go dancing afterwards. Mibinamet, مونیکا Join me on: English reading club: [www.meetup.com/gaia-books](www.meetup.com/gaia-books) Spanish reading club: [www.meetup.com/gaia-libros](https://www.meetup.com/gaia-libros) French reading club: [www.meetup.com/gaia-livres](https://www.meetup.com/gaia-livres) Instagram @persian_culture_

Ausgezeichnet mit dem Deutschen Buchpreis 2022 und dem Schweizer Buchpreis 2022 Die Erzählfigur in ›Blutbuch‹ identifiziert sich weder als Mann noch als Frau. Aufgewachsen in einem Schweizer Vorort, lebt sie nun in Zürich, ist den engen Strukturen der Herkunft entkommen und fühlt sich im nonbinären Körper und in der eigenen Sexualität wohl. Doch dann erkrankt die Großmutter an Demenz, und das Ich beginnt, sich mit der Vergangenheit auseinanderzusetzen: Warum sind da nur bruchstückhafte Erinnerungen an die eigene Kindheit? Wieso vermag sich die Großmutter kaum von ihrer früh verstorbenen Schwester abzugrenzen? Und was geschah mit der Großtante, die als junge Frau verschwand? Die Erzählfigur stemmt sich gegen die Schweigekultur der Mütter und forscht nach der nicht tradierten weiblichen Blutslinie. Dieser Roman ist ein stilistisch und formal einzigartiger Befreiungsakt von den Dingen, die wir ungefragt weitertragen: Geschlechter, Traumata, Klassenzugehörigkeiten. Kim de l’Horizon macht sich auf die Suche nach anderen Arten von Wissen und Überlieferung, Erzählen und Ichwerdung, unterspült dabei die linearen Formen der Familienerzählung und nähert sich einer flüssigen und strömenden Art des Schreibens, die nicht festlegt, sondern öffnet.

Please join us as we discuss **CHILDREN OF TIME**, book 1 of *Children of Time* by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This novel won the Arthur C. Clarke award, and is of moderate length, at about 609 pages. Please keep your RSVP updated and accurate! Space is limited for this event. We are intentionally holding some RSVP slots for new members specifically, so if you’re new and the event is full, please get on the waitlist ASAP! You may bring your own food/drinks (no alcohol, please) or you may pick something up in Mosaic or at the farmers market before the meetup. We do ask that you pack your trash out with you. * **[KINDLE](https://a.co/d/a3Cy5hF)** * **[PAPERBACK](https://www.amazon.com/Children-Time-Adrian-Tchaikovsky/dp/0316452505/)** * **[AUDIBLE](https://www.audible.com/pd/Children-of-Time-Audiobook/B071Y9TTHC)** **BOOK DESCRIPTION:** ***Who will inherit this new Earth?*** The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth? *\*Since missing one of these meetups is taking a spot away from someone else who wants to go, we'll need to have a stricter attendance policy than normal. For book discussions, 3 no-shows in a rolling 3-month period will prohibit you from attending any other book discussion for 2 months after your last no-show. In order to avoid a no-show, please update your RSVP no later than 10pm two nights before a discussion. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation! If you need to drop off because of Covid symptoms or exposure or a positive test or any other illness, there will be no penalty to no-showing or dropping late.*

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation as we discuss ***Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It* by Cory Doctorow** Here's the summary: **Explaining the process of the “enshittification” of digital platforms over time and what to do about it.** Cory Doctorow's *Enshittification* takes a witty yet incisive look at the tech landscape, where platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Google start off great—before they inevitably turn terrible. In this contemporary moment of digital decline, Doctorow explores how tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, squeezing profit at the cost of user experience. With a mix of sharp humor and deep insight, he unveils the slow creep of "enshittification," turning the online world into a worse place, one algorithm at a time. **Let’s meet at Caboose Commons in Fairfax to enjoy some good discussion and meet new friends.**

[Profs and Pints Northern Virginia](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“The Life of Frankenstein,”** on the birth, evolution and impact of a tale of man-made monstrosity, with Bernard Welt, an emeritus professor of arts and humanities at George Washington University who frequently lectures on Frankenstein in literature, cinema, and culture. [Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at [https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/nv-life-of-frankenstein](https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/nv-life-of-frankenstein) .] Guillermo del Toro’s lush and lovingly produced film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus* is just the latest of many iterations of the story to capture the public’s imagination. People have watched Victor Frankenstein give life to his monster in numerous films, on television, and on stage, and even perform “Putting on the Ritz” with him thanks to the comic genius of Mel Brooks. Mary Shelley did not just tell a tale. She spawned the modern genre of speculative fiction and gave rise to a myth that would crop up in debates over nature versus nurture and other matters. Even today it stokes anxieties over the potential impacts of robotics, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering, by evoking the image of a monster turning on its progenitor. Come gain a new appreciation of Mary Shelley’s creation with the help of Dr. Bernard Welt, who has studied the relationship between nightmares and the horror genre and is the author of *Mythomania: Fantasies, Fables, and Sheer Lies in Contemporary American Popular Art.* Dr. Welt will start by telling a literary origin story almost as famous as Frankenstein itself, of how an 18-year-old Shelley started writing *Frankenstein* in 1816 while staying in a villa on Lake Geneva with two of her era’s leading poets, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, her lover. Housebound by foul weather, the three read Gothic tales of ghosts and monsters and challenged each other to produce something even more terrifying. Mary dreamed up a story of a man who defied death by creating a living being out of scraps of deceased men harvested from graveyards and anatomy labs. The resulting novel, *Frankenstein*, published anonymously in 1818, would by that century’s end become a touchstone in philosophical discourse on the nature of humanity and in political discussions of imperialism and populism. By the 21st century, Mary Shelley (as she became) had earned a more significant place in the literary canon than Byron and her husband Shelley. We will examine how this grisly tale became a landmark of modern thought and look at the part played by numerous film adaptations from the first years of cinema to the present day. (Door: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: From a Theodor von Holst engraving in an 1831 edition of *Frankenstein* published by Colburn and Bentley of London.

Join the North Bethesda Fiction Readers in a discussion of Hernan Diaz's *[Trust](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/hernan-diaz/trust-diaz/)* on Martin Luther King Jr Holiday, Monday, January 19. Kirkus Reviews describes the novel as "a tale of wealth, love, and madness told in four distinct but connected narratives." We will meet in the common area of a condominium association. I will send more detailed information to registrants about how to find us. (The concierge will not likely be helpful.) If the common area is not attractive to us, we will meet in the organizer's apartment. There is metered parking on the street; however, because of the holiday, you do not have to feed the meter

We're experimenting and trying a new place! Activities: Writing Sprints (individual time boxed writing time) These writing times can be used to do any writing-related activities like plotting/outlining, and most importantly writing and working on your own writing! Make sure to bring your writing tools (laptop, notebook, your brain). We start the first sprint promptly at 10:15 between every writing sprint we take 5-15 minute breaks We shoot for a total of 3 sprints (45 minutes of writing) Location: Corner Bakery Parking: Is free Food: breakfast until 11:00 Standard lunch menu after that https://cornerbakerycafe.com/

Looking for a quiet, focused space to write? Come be part of our writing group—a dedicated time just for writing alongside fellow writers in your community. No readings, no critiques, no peer-review—just you writing within a supportive atmosphere. 7pm-7:15pm: Find your seat, set up your writing station, quick intro's. 7:15pm-8:45 pm: An hour and a half of silent focused writing. 8:45pm-9pm: Quick debrief, pack and head home. Can't wait to see you! :)