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Monday Night Group
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About
What is ‘The Monday Night Group’?
We’re one of Manchester’s longest-running creative writing groups, having met continuously for over 30 years.
The Monday Night Group is one of the Commonword family of writers’ groups, along with Identity, Womanswrite and Northern Gay Writers. We aim to provide a space to bring your writing, share it with fellow writers from a wide variety of backgrounds, and receive constructive feedback to help you develop and improve your work.
We welcome anyone who’s passionate about their writing, regardless of gender, ethnic origin, disability, age, social background or sexual orientation.
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Where and When does the Monday Night Group Meet?
As our name suggests, we meet every Monday evening (except for BankHolidays), 7.30pm to 9.30pm at the Commonword offices in the basementof the Friends’ Meeting House, behind Central Library in Manchestercity centre. See the map to the right.
Access to the Commonword office is via the side entrance on Bootle Street. You’ll find an intercom next to the door, and all you have to do is press the ‘Commonword’ button and we’ll let you in. The venue is fully accessible (though the corridor is a bit on the twisty side).
Attendance at Monday Night Group meetings and workshops is free, but donations to support our work are welcome.
How Does the Monday Night Group Work?
When you come to a Monday Night Group meeting, what can you expect? Well, first of all, you’ll meet writers with a wide variety of backgrounds and experience levels. Our members include poets, novelists, short story writers, dramatists and performers. Some of us are published, others not. What we do have in common is a passion for writing, a desire to develop ourwork, and a willingness to support others in doing so.
Our general meetings work in a very straightforward way. We start off by finding out who’s brought work to read out, then go around the table with members reading their work and receiving feedback. We normally assume a maximum of ten minutes to read out and another ten for feedback.
There’s no compulsion to read out the first time you attend (or, indeed, on any occasion). If you do bring work along, it’s helpful if you can also bring a few copies so that fellow members can read along.
Whether you’re reading your own work or not, we would encourage you to get involved in providing feedback.
You can find out more by reading our ‘Hints & Tips for New Members’ in the Resources section of this site, or by clicking on the following link Feedback
Getting constructive feedback from other writers is what the group’s all about. It’s the way we learn and develop our skills as writers.
So, if you are reading out, we’d encourage you to be open to the feedback other members give you. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with it all, but it does mean that you should be prepared to listen and consider what people say.
A while ago, we asked our members what words came to mind to describe the sort of feedback they got from the group. Here are some of the words that came up: - critical feedback
- useful
- honest
- proactive
- balanced
- energetic
- specific.
You can find feedback guidelines in the Resources section of this site.
Other Activities
We also hold more targeted workshop sessions once a month. Past workshops have included: Responses to Sensory Observations - Giving Feedback
- Writing Erotic Fiction
- Getting Published (with guest literary agent Jane Smith and Comma editor Jim Hinks)
- Guest workshops from writers and performers such as Mahogany L Browne, John Siddique and Chloe Poems
- General creativity workshops.
Most of the workshops are run by MNG members, so they’re not just an opportunity to participate, but also to gain experience in running workshops.
See the News and Events pages for information on forthcoming workshops.
The Monday Night Group also publishes members’ work from time to time – see the MNG Publications page.
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