Monday Night Group

Welcome to the Monday Night Group!

We hope that you’ll find your association with the MNG rewarding, stimulating and enjoyable. To help things along, and with the knowledge that no two creative writing groups are the same, we’ve put together a few dos and don’ts to help you get the best out your membership.

The MNG has a fluid membership, with different people dropping in all the time as well as a regular core membership. This means that coming regularly over a period of time will get you a wide variety of views on your work.

Do:

• read out what you've written. If this is the first writers’ group you’ve been to, it’s OK to be nervous, but the sooner you take the plunge the better
• bring copies of your work if possible - reading along helps everyone else focus and give better feedback. It’s hard to say how many copies to bring, but between 6 and 10 is probably a good bet for most weeks
• give constructive and honest feedback to other members on their work - that's what we're here for. You can find guidelines for giving feedback on the Resources page of the MNG website
• ask to read people's work if you're interested - they'll probably be flattered, it’s a good way to break the ice, and you'll get to know people’s work better that way
• try to be on time - we normally start reading at about 7.50pm, so arriving for 7.30pm is a good idea. Arriving later risks both missing some people’s work and interrupting readings
• keep in touch with the website – you’ll find News and Events there
• join us in the pub afterwards (currently the Waterhouse on Princess St).

Don’t:

• be offended, or get defensive, if your work gets some criticism - everyone tries to be constructive and you'll decide for yourself whose opinions you trust as you get to know people and hear/receive their feedback. At the MNG we aim to support each other’s writing by giving honest, constructive and direct feedback
• worry if you've not brought anything to read; listening and feeding back is just as important as reading out
• talk about your work too much before you read it out – it’s better if you let people make their own minds up about it, plus it takes up valuable time
• set too many criteria about what you want feedback on. If there are some specifics, then by all means let us know beforehand, but keep yourself open to whatever fellow members have to say.