Welcome to Kulturverein Sunday Writers’ Club.
You wouldn’t believe how happy (and relieved) I feel to be writing this welcome blog. It’s been a long, slow, frustrating, challenging, stressful, hair-pulling, fingernail-gnawing, late-night-drinking, caffeine-overdosing journey to get to this point…
Sunday Writers’ Club began a little over two years ago as both a hobby and a way to meet like-minded souls in the city. Paul (Malone) had the brilliant idea of starting a writing group that would meet in a different café every Sunday and between us we developed our now ‘world-famous’ SWC Prompt Menu to help structure the meetings. We weren’t looking for Vienna’s most lauded and elite writers. We were looking for enthusiasm, a sense of fun, undiscovered talent, big imaginations, a willingness to try something new. And we still feel incredibly lucky to have some writers from our early sessions who, two years later, still turn up on a Sunday morning to write alongside us. The writers we met during those first few months truly helped shape the heart and soul of Sunday Writers’ Club.
Vienna is a crossroads city here in the middle of Europe. A lot of people pass through. During the Sunday morning sessions we’ve been fortunate enough to host some fantastic aspiring and amateur writers while they’ve studied here, taught here, supported foreign spouses here and worked their own short-term positions here. It’s such a cliché, because it’s so true: everyone has a story to tell. And at Sunday Writers’ Club we’ve been fortunate enough to help people get their own unique and wonderful stories written down. One of the greatest pleasures of running a Sunday morning writing session is when four or five different writers choose the same prompt from the Prompt Menu and yet tackle it in four or five different ways – finding their own voice in the tangle of ideas, experiences and memories.
Sunday morning writing sessions are going to continue in the cafés around the city. We love them and they’re the backbone of what we do at Sunday Writers’ Club. But now we’re hoping to reach out beyond Vienna to find other enthusiastic writers with a sense of fun, who are discovering their talent and opening up their big imaginations, who feel willing to try something new. Perhaps that’s you? As a member, you could use our Menus to meet with your own friends in your own city. Maybe you could use our monthly Writers’ Lab to develop your craft and share your new writing both here on the Blog and with your own Sunday morning writing group. Perhaps we can link up with you via Zoom…?
Something new for us is the introduction of the online feature, Meet The Professionals, of which both members and non-members can take part (although with places in short supply, Sunday Writers’ Club members will always be given top-of-the-list treatment). We’re inviting authors, editors, agents, publishers and giving you the time to ask them your own burning questions about how the publishing industry works. If you’re keen on getting your own writing published then taking the opportunity to Meet The Professionals is must.
We are asking for a little help in return, however. Our Blog thrives because of the stories and poems that are sent to us on a regular basis – so keep them coming! We are adding the facility to comment on other writers’ work and hope you’ll enjoy using it constructively to connect with your fellow SWCers, and keep growing our community full of engagement and encouragement.
We’ll also be producing a monthly members-only newsletter and would like to make it as interactive as possible, with lots of members’ thoughts and input. Our first newsletter, due in October, will include some recommended reads for the best “How To” creative writing guides. Please email your suggestions to keith@sundaywritersclub.com. Include the title, the author and maybe a sentence or two explaining why you’re recommending this particular guide. How has it been useful to you? What gems of info did you discover inside? It would be great to include as many of your recommendations in the newsletter as possible.
Regular members may also find themselves being asked to take part in our brand new podcast. Each episode will focus on a SWCer who’s writing we really enjoy. They’ll be interviewed and we’ll make their stories and poems into audio files for the whole world’s listening pleasure.
I feel as though I’m only scratching the surface here. Oh my, do we have big plans and ideas…!
Paul, Jasmine and I hope you’ll enjoy finding a place in Sunday Writers’ Club either as a full member, as a guest at a Sunday morning writing session, taking part of the conversation during Meet The Professionals, or whatever else fabulous thing we manage dream up…! And if you do, then I’m positive that together we can make Kulturverien Sunday Writers’ Club an exciting, encouraging, author-building, poetry-crafting, story-stimulating, imagination-boosting, forward-thinking creative community we’re all proud to be part of.
Happy Writing!
Keith, with Paul and Jasmine.