A new spoken word group has been set up to encourage anyone with an interest in writing and publishing to promote their work to a wider audience.

The ‘Telling It’ group, set up by author Mark Giles, will hold its second meeting in St Ives next month. Mark, who independently published his novel, Collapse of the Wave, last year under the name Mark Fryday, said he set up the group after realising there was not much out there to support writers.

He said: “I have been looking for opportunities in the Cambridgeshire area to promote my work. I originally come from the North East and there is a vibrant spoken word culture there, but I found that the few groups that did exist in Cambridgeshire were very specialised and were not suitable for the average writer to use as a platform. So I thought why not set one up myself?”

Mark says with support from Cambridgeshire Libraries and his own network he has managed to get together nine writers, with diverse interests, who are all looking for a forum to promote their work to the wider public.

“We decided that the name for the group would be Telling It’ and the event name will follow this each time, depending on the theme of the night. Our first event is on February 15. Since this is near Valentine’s Day we picked the obvious theme. So the first event will be: Telling It...about love.”

The material is yet to be decided but it will be a mixture of readings from novels, sit coms, short stories and poetry. “We are aiming to make this a spoken word show that is accessible, entertaining, inclusive and definitely not pretentious. The writers themselves hope to be able to not only promote and sell their work on the night, but also benefit from audience reaction and feedback on the night. Between events ‘Telling It’ will also serve as a support network for its writer members.”

INFORMATION: The session will be at the Royal Oak pub in St Ives. Arrive for 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Admission is free. There will be three sessions of three writers, with a Q&A sessions.

Contact: mark_giles_uk@yahoo.co.uk

Will Waldron, Mark Fryday and Philip Vine.