Greetings from Leuven, Belgium, which is my second home to mid-Michigan, US. I'm excited to try out WriteWords for a month in the hope to connect with writers and, ideally, people in Europe (near Belgium and the U.K.).

The first half of July, I'm staying in Hebden Bridge, GB, and am interested to hear about any literary happenings in northern England (or southern Scotland). The rest of the time, I mainly am situated in Leuven, BE, with easy access to Brussels. Please share any info about Brussels-based events too.

I look forward to chatting with newcomers and members this month. If all goes well, I plan to become a full member and explore the writers' groups.

Welcome aboard!

Nik.

Welcome!

Casey

Welcome to WW - have a good look round, and shout for help or ask Dee or Nik, the Site Hosts, if you need it!

Emma

Welcome, Melissa. As Emma said, Nik and I are site hosts so feel free to ask us anything you need.

I live just a few miles from Hebden Bridge - you must visit Sylvia Plath’s grave while you're here. Lumb Bank, where she lived with Ted Hughes, is just round the corner, and is now an Arvon centre… is that what’s bringing you to the area?

Dee

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Dee, I do know about Plath's grave and look forward to paying my respects. Chance made it possible to travel that direction, though I hadn't sought out the destination.

Any tips on how to make the best use of my trial membership is much appreciated. There's a lot going on in this community, and I hope to make the rounds.

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FYI - I've posted some poems to the Introduce Your Work forum.

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And since the posting, I learned the Introduce Your Work forum is not the place to post writing. Apologies.

Re literature festivals - if you check out the Writers and Artists Yearbook, they'll have a list.

I think Dartington Ways With Words festival is in July and they always have very well-respected speakers - however, that's down in Devon which is some way away from Hebden Bridge. If you happen to be back there towards the end of September there's Ilkley Literature Festival, another v good one (I'm speaking at it btw, on writing non-fiction books).

Welcome to writewords.

all best

Maria
www.mariamccarthy.co.uk

Maria, thanks for the tip about the book! I've ordered it.

Glad to have found this web site. So far, so good!

Welcome, deyofthephoenix. I have friends in Leuven and I've visited a few times - I love the restaurants there!

I hope you enjoy the site.

Maria, are you speaking at Dartington too?

Hebden Bridge is lovely. Nice to meet you!

I've just come across this thread. I live in Brussels. Depending on what sort of thing you write, there are a few things going on. The Open University are hosting a creative writing session in WAterstone's, Boulevard Adolph Max, 1000 Brussels at the start of September, run by Alice Jolly, who lives locally. Check out The Bulletin for writers' groups. If you write children's fiction, there used to be a branch of the SCBWI here, though I am not sure how active it is nowadays.
Check out also Passaporta, the multi-lingual bookshop on Rue Antoine Dansaert in Brussels. They have writing events regularly.

Thanks for the suggestions! They're much appreciated and I'll be looking up the ongoing events @ Passaporta.

A welcome form me too, I used to live near hebden Bridge and I just loved it