Past speakers at the Circle have included notable authors, scriptwriters, and writing coaches as well as in-house speakers who have published their own work.
SIMON BRETT, writer of detective novels, scriptwriter of several radio sitcoms and radio and TV producer, performed extracts from his work as well as delivering a workshop at our Writers' Day in 2006.
KAREN BOWMAN, our speaker in October 2015, brought along some unusual guests, beautifully attired in the fashions appropriate to their time in history. Karen used the mannequins to display the clothes worn by women from the middle ages, onwards and even she wore a magnificent outfit from Tudor times. The aim of her talk was to inform us about the social implications that these outfits had on their wearers..
COLIN DEXTER, author of the Inspector Morse novels, was also very involved in the BBC series based on his books. He was a very informative as well as amusing speaker at our Writers' Day in 2007
IVY LORD, who wrote under the pseudonym of Elizabeth Lord, was a member of the Brentwood Writers' Circle and spoke often at meetings. She also served on the Circle's committee. She did not start writing until late in life, after writing about a traumatic incident as a therapeutic exercise. She went on to publish more than 25 novels, family sagas that were mostly based in the East End of London. She also wrote under the name of Maggie Ford for the American market.
LIZ TRENOW, a former journalist turned novelist, Liz's novels are based upon her family's background in silk weaving and she brought along examples of quilts to illustrate her talk to the Circle in February 2016.
SARAH-JANE PAGE, a professional writing tutor conducted our WRITERS' DAY in October 2019. The whole-day session centered on writing techniques and Sarah-Jane’s instructional examples were interspersed with practical tasks,
NATASHA RADFORD, who had opened the Chicken and Frog children’s bookshop in Brentwood along with her husband just over a year before, was our guest speaker in March 2014. Natasha gave advice about writing for children, illustrations for chldren's books and getting books published, which proved relevant to other writing genres too.
SARAH BANHAM first visited the Circle in July 2016 but her second visit in August 2021 had to be via Zoom, owing to the Covid pandemic. Sarah categorised her talk into marketing tools, developing personal confidence, continuing professional development, and how to go about sharing knowledge and gathering resources.ces.
RACHEL DAVIDSON, our guest speaker in February, 2020, gave a fascinating talk on being a successful and independently published author. From an early age, she had a great interest in Shamanism and spiritual mysticism, which became her chosen genre in writing.
LUCY McCARRAHER told our meeting in April 2019 about her interesting career in writing and the media. Her professional journey is a fine example of how involvement with one area of writing can lead to another, and then another. Lucy’s adoption of two Russian girls and her interest in genealogy led to her first attempt at a novel. Advice from a publisher led to her becoming obsessed with structure. Her other books are all self-help publications.
DAWN KNOX, a former member of Brentwood Writers' Circle, has published several novels dealing with the First World War, children's books and short stories. She has talked about her writing at meetings and her use of modern technology.