About us

Who we are

Birmingham Writers’ Group welcomes members from all walks of life from across the West Midlands – we’re a mixed bunch, and we enjoy new perspectives. All we require is that our members are regular writers – published or otherwise – and that they treat each other with respect.

What we do

Many people think of writers as solitary hermits – but the core goal of most writers is focused upon other people: communicating with an audience, whoever that audience may be.

Different people join the Writers’ Group for different reasons, but some themes are central: we’re here to support each other’s writing, and sympathise with writerly woes, and we’re also here to provide constructive critical advice on each other’s work.

Our meetings take a variety of different formats. Often, members will read out their work for others to comment on – but we also host instant writing exercises, competitions, and a range of discussion evenings on particular themes.

What we write

We’re open to all kinds of writing. Our current membership features a lot of prose-fiction writers with a smattering of poets for good measure, but we’re also open to non-fiction writers too; we’ve mainly focused on writing short stories and novels, but we’ve also covered radio plays and screenplays.

We do ask that any material read out at our meetings should be suitable for a diverse audience. Furthermore, whilst our range of ability varies, we are not a language class – we welcome second-language writers, but we’re not equipped to teach writing if you’re only just starting out.

When we meet

We generally meet twice monthly: see our programme for details.

After the official meetings, some of our members retire to a nearby pub for a less formal chat, but this certainly isn’t compulsory! We also arrange additional social evenings elsewhere in other venues.

If you’re interested in attending our next meeting, please read our ‘how to join’ page first – new members are welcome at all meetings, but for some of them it’s better to have read the submitted manuscripts to get the most out of the meeting.