Lacombe Writers Group is a great place for local writers to share, socialize and improve as writers, officials with the group say.
Maureen Pocock, one of the group’s members, said that sharing her work at the regular meetings has helped her write more and become a better writer.
“People really like to share. If you write and you haven’t got someone to read it to it’s kind of pointless to have it.”
A few years ago, a local author held a workshop for people in the area wishing to write memoirs. Several of those at the well-attended event wanted to keep meeting in order to share their writing and have a reason to continue writing as well. It was then that the Lacombe Writers Group first began.
Meetings of the group focus on providing a venue for local writers to share their work more so than act as workshops for writers, said Pocock. She said that no actual writing is done at the meetings but sharing each other’s work is a good incentive for writers to continue writing.
While the group began as gathering of people who wanted to write memoirs, it has expanded to include other genres as well. Pocock said that poetry, history, humour and most other genres are represented in the club already and anyone who wishes to write and share their writing is welcome at meetings.
There are about 16 members in the writers group and Pocock said there are usually about a half dozen at each meeting. Writers from a large area surround Lacombe come into the City for meetings, including one member who lives near Rocky Mountain House.
A number of the Lacombe Writers Group are also published authors. Pocock herself just had a second printing done of her first book, Close to My Heart, which was first published just before Christmas. Close to My Heart is a collection of reflections, memoirs and family histories, which Pocock said comprise the bulk of her writing.
While she has only been writing such stories since the beginning of the writers group, Pocock said she has always been interested in writing.
She added that she has kept quite a correspondence with many friends and family over the years and, had she not been a writer, would have lost touch with many of them.
Lacombe Writers Group is beginning to branch out from just reading to each other. Pocock said the group has done a number of public readings as well, the most recent being at the library during seniors week.
She said the event was successful, even more so than anticipated. She added that originally the group did not think it would have enough readers or material to fill the whole hour slot they had been allotted and planned to read in short chunks over the course of that time. As it turned out, the group was reading steadily throughout the entire hour.
A very informal club, the Lacombe Writers Group meets at the Evangelical Free Church every other Monday to share their writing. Pocock said the group is a social club as much as a venue to share so meetings are very informal and often last a few hours. She also said that the group is very focused on simply sharing, although there are at times critiquing and discussion on writing.