Pippa Kay's Website

The Common Thread Writers

Who are We?

The Common Thread Writers Group was originally an offshoot of Pippa Kay's creative writing classes in the late 1990s. Members were highly motivated and wanted to continue beyond the level Pippa could offer in her classes.

What do we do?

We meet once a week in a member's home and bring along something we have written to read to the group. The other members then give feedback on the piece, which the author can accept or reject.

Since 2004 we have produced an annual anthology of members' work, which is mostly short fiction, some poetry and an occasional short memoir. Our 2007 anthology was reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum and a copy of this review can be read here.

In 2010 we decided to hold a short story competition with a difference. Many of our members regularly enter short story competitions and we hear the complaint that it's just like sending your work into a black hole - sometimes they might be acknowledged but feedback is rare. Another problem we all experience is word length restrictions. So, after some discussion, we launched a competition for longer short stories of between 3000 and 5000 words with optional feedback. Last year we received 102 entries, and about half of these requested feedback. The results of 2011 competition can be viewed here. We did not publish an anthology last year, but this year (2012) will be a "bumper" issue.

Home Page ~~ Pippa's Books ~~ The Common Thread Longer Short Story Competition ~~ The Common Thread Anthologies