Royston Writers Circle

Fred Sillence, who was editor of The Royston Crow, founded Royston Writers’ Circle in 1979. Since then it has met 10 or 11 times a year.

Fred was chairman up to his untimely death in 1999. The Circle produced an anthology of tributes to him showing how much he bought to their lives and to many people in Royston. In 2000 in his memory the Circle ran a short story competition for young people, it showed what a wealth of young writing talent, exists in the area. Since then we have run a number of “very short” story competitions as part of the Royston Arts Festival. In 2009 we published a 30th anniversary anthology and our 40th anniversary anthology followed in 2019.

The Circle is still going strong. We are a small, friendly and supportive group. We follow a programme with some shorter pieces written on the night and other longer pieces written beforehand. Our results are always varied, some funny, sad, poignant or inventive but certainly never dull. There is no pressure to share but most do and we all enjoy hearing what others have written.