2021

July - Enrolled Pensioner Guard member, John Knowles has written eight books about different branches of his family. He will explain why and how he wrote and published the books that have been distributed to his extended family. All books are electronic and some have been printed. 

Writers Group member, Jane DiGiuseppe will share some general rules on how to integrate scientific names smoothly into our family history writings (as opposed to formal scientific publications).

June - Presentation by Shannon Meyerkort

May - Presentation:  Growing Your Stories.  This session will be lead by Zoe Inman and examples will be given on how suggestions from Writers Group members have improved our stories.

April - Annual General Meeting and Topic: Your Questions

March - Presentation by Mike Murray & Lesley Silvester (editors of Western Ancestor) discussed their new "Guide for Contributors". 

February - Presentation by Liana Fitzpatrick - StoryWorth and Book Review by Rob Smith - How to Write HISTORY that people want to read by authors Ann Curthoys and Ann McGrath.

2020

November - Presentation by Jeff Moss - Enticing Your Readers into Another World: Increasing the effectiveness of introduction for family stories.

October - Tools to assist when writing including Dictate and Editor in Word

September - Tools to assist in writing.

August - Discussion and Q&A on how critiquing can help improve our story writing. 

July - Presentation by Jeff Moss - 'Dig Deep to Discover the Details......So I Can Write a Riveting Read'. 

June - Final presentation by Chris Timoney - Tips for More Powerful Writing (Part Three) and Mark Keenan will demonstrate how the 'Five minute diary helps spark his creativity'.

 May - A brief AGM then a presentation by Chris Timoney - Tips for More Powerful Writing (Part Two). 

April - General writing question and answer discussion with a demonstration how to edit a PDF file on Acrobat reader. 

March - Presentations by Fran Schifferli - Critiquing  and Chris Timoney - Tips for More Powerful Writing (Part One).

February - Presentations by Don Briggs - Using Dragon Naturally Speaking and Ian Scott - Amy Johnson Crow genealogy website.

In December 2019 we published our inaugural book of short stories,   "I have often wondered...."

Preparing and publishing was a huge learning curve for our group - learning how to use footnotes, endnotes, setting up chapters, multiple indexes, photos, etc. The end result was an excellent book.

Copies of the book can be ordered from the FHWA Bookshop.

Writers Group Forum - In the forum you can share information and ask questions.

Convenor: Liana Fitzpatrick

Contact: SIGS Contacts - Convenors - Writers Group

FAMILY HISTORY WA Events - Next meeting will be ONLINE - Wednesday 4 August 2021 10am-12 noon

If you are attending our meeting please book -  https://www.trybooking.com/BFCIE

Presentation - East Guildford Cemetery by Helen Jones  Parish history, government red tape, and family stories are intertwined in the history of this cemetery.  Helen’s presentation shows us, as writers, another way of turning dry facts into fascinating accounts that readers will enjoy.

The writing topic is Garden / Chapter of your life / Free Choice. Due Wed 28 July 2021

Are you writing your family history or don't know where to start?  Join this group of family historians who go beyond names and dates to flesh out the stories behind their ancestors.  The Writers Group was established in September 2018 to facilitate, support, encourage and motivate each other to write our families history.

We meet monthly at 10am on the first Wednesday of the month (except January).

Meetings include presentations and discussions to aid our writing. Between meetings we are encouraged to write a short article on a specific topic or a topic of our own choice. In small groups we postively critique our submitted stories.  Our stories and minutes of meetings are stored in the Writers Shared Drive. We are amassing a huge collection of resources which are available to members. 

We welcome new members who want to get and give encouragement, support and help in writing about their families history.

Committee: Liana Fitzpatrick, Desma Wachtel, Fran Schifferli, Graham Chapman, Heather Simon and Kaye Nind.