Tag: murderous medway

March is Medway Women’s History Month and I’ve organised some stuff. You’re welcome :)

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Saturdays in March 2025 are going to be busy, so block out your diaries now. Under the guise of the Rochester Literature Festival (resurrected!) I, together with a new steering group for MWHM, am working in partnership Medway Adult Education, Salvation Army, Strood and the Net Community Hub to celebrate Medway Women’s History Month.

Here’s our programme for the month:

March 1st: Launch Event at Rochester Adult Education Centre, Room 11.

A chance to meet the team behind the Medway Women’s History Month and get the low down, a Keynote Speech from former Medway Mayor, Nina Gurung, and empowerment courtesy of Adelle Martin and Fiona Shoults, co-founders of Stronger Together Through Cancer.

We end with a performance from the Brompton and Invicta Military Wives Choir.

Find out more here.

March 8th: Challenging Stereotypes, at Rochester Adult Education Centre, Room 11.

10.30am: A ‘Jobs for the Girls’ panel will feature women who work in traditionally male environments in the morning, including boat builder Poppy Lavers, Sapper Izzy Crooks and Rochester Bridge Trust Civil Engineer Helen Rowe, hosted by former detective (and RLF Patron) Lisa Cutts.

1.30pm: ‘A Sporting Chance’ in the afternoon will feature Tracy Bullock, first female chair of Medway Rugby Club and female players from Chatham Town FC, hosted by Steph Brivio OBE, Chair of Medway Netball.

There will be market places in both panels for girls to ask questions.

Find out more here.

March 15th: Author Talks at The Salvation Army Hall, Strood

We have two amazing female authors for you to enjoy on Saturday 15th March, at the Salvation Army Hall in Strood, hosted by author and publisher, Julia Williams.

2pm: In Conversation with Victoria Smith

The author of ‘Hags: The demonization of middle-aged women’, and new book, (Un)Kind, this will be a thoughtful and insightful conversation around the issues that affect so many women in their day to day lives.

4pm: In Conversation with SJ Bennett – a Mini Murderous Medway

SJ Bennett is the author of the bestselling mystery series featuring Queen Elizabeth II as a secret sleuth, Her Majesty The Queen Investigates. She has written fifteen novels for children and adults, winning the Romantic Novel of the Year award for Love Song and the Times/Chicken House prize for Threads.

Find out more and book tickets here.

March 22nd at The Net Community Hub, Walderslade

11am: From Suffragettes to the Political Now

Hosted by Jennifer Godfrey, the author of many awesome books about the first women to break through the glass ceiling, in conversation with former Chatham MP, Tracey Crouch and current Gillingham MP, Naushabah Khan.

Find out more here.

1pm: Overcoming the Obstacles – Medway’s female community doers

Going into the afternoon, we’re delighted to host three awesome women, who, in spite of their disabilities, make a massive difference to their local communities: Kate Belmonte (Mutual Aid Road Reps) Sue Bulpin (Brainstormz!) and Sam Rapp, the Dyslexic Poet.

Find out more here.

March 29th: Finale Day at The Net Community Hub

An eclectic mix to wrap up our celebration.

12 Noon: Creative Medway Women – Dr. Carol Stewart, Chair of Creative Medway, talks to Lynne Parker, founder of Funny Women CIC, and Sue Davis, a freelance web content trainer.

At 2pm, the Medway Women’s History Month team, led by Georgia Read-Cutting will host an interactive session to celebrate incredible women that no-one has heard of.

4pm – it’s the finale of the finale!

With music from talented Medway songstress, Didi Bergman, poetry from the lovely Tender Eye, among others, with comedy* and much more.

Find out more here.

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*There’s even a rumour I might make my comedy debut, but don’t hold me to it *eek*

On a Spring roll …

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m2412

For novelists, November is a huge month, with a small endeavour known as  NaNoWriMo keeping them busy. It’s like the vomit draft I mentioned previously, aimed at getting some 50,000 words of a novel down on paper.

For screenwriters, the equivalent is Zero Draft Thirty – a month long attempt to bash out the first draft of your screenplay, or plan or rewrite – there are no rules. It fitted well with my three pages a day plan.

March was ZDT and I decided to adapt a thirty page short sci-fi story. I quickly realised that the twist at the end was really only the end of the first act and then came the hard part of upping the stakes.

I took vomit draft to a whole new level as I struggled to make sense of the story – and also struggled to not edit as I went along  – until finally, something clicked. It might only be 48 pages in total at present, as the 3 pages a day gave way to thrashing out the story, but it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and I’m pleased with the overall concept. My main character turned out to be fun too!

Although I found the rewriting process with the other two projects a lot of fun, I’ve parked this story for now – it was more of an experiment for my first ZDT – and am going to focus on another project that I feel more passionate about, one that has a beginning and an end but a higgledy-piggledy middle.  This one, a darkly comic crime caper, has been one of my main projects since I started to focus on screenplays and I’m itching to crack on with it.

Flitting between the two stories is a bit of luxury at present, as the two completed projects are now with a script consultant. The pilot I’m going to enter in Thousand Films competition, and the feature will be sent to Sheridan Smith’s production company, Barking Mad Productions – Sheridan very kindly put out a call for scripts and has promised to read all of them – I’m guessing she’s decided for forego sleep for a while!

All this is happening while putting together the next RLF Murderous Medway (21st September), for which we have some cracking authors already lined up. A pretty productive March, which has energised me for April!