event

By Julia Besnard

On 9 March, our community came together to celebrate the launch of the 21st issue of Imprint, WiPS’ annual anthology. Held in the gorgeous Hughes Room of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, the evening was part of the Hong Kong Literary Festival. Picture this: a large group of women (and one man!) finally gathered in person after three years of virtual events to celebrate the written word, hear some inspiring read-alouds, enjoy […]

After many long months of Zoom meetings and solitary evenings, WiPS was finally able to offer our members a chance to gather, in person, for a casual evening of drinks and snacks at the Dada Lounge in Tsim Sha Tsui. Although we were a small group, Dada did not disappoint! Their extended happy hour meant that we all enjoyed two-for-one drinks until 9pm, along with lively, interesting […]

By Andy Lowe

Fiction can be a powerful healer, and on 22 November 2022 twenty members and friends of WiPS joined an interview with our international guest, bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud who co-authored The Novel Cure, and moderator, Bhakti Mathur, to learn what bibliotherapy is and how fiction can help us cure life’s ailments.

Neuroscientists suggest that reading for six minutes a day is as beneficial as one hour of meditation. During reading our heart […]

Using Story Structure for Stronger Novels

By Lesley Hobbs

I am at first-draft stage of my debut novel and have recently been feeling dissatisfied as to the course of my protagonist’s journey. I have lost the proverbial plot so to speak! I was therefore hoping that Sherryl Clark’s two-hour Masterclass on “Using story structure for stronger novels” would get my thinking and writing back on track. I wasn’t disappointed.

Sherryl’s key message was that a […]

Portraying the DNA of Fictional People

By Irenee Chan

Sherryl Clark’s Masterclass on Creating Deeper Characters was incredibly detailed and insightful. I had been struggling with character development in my stories and when I found out about this class, I was eager to sign up to learn more on how to create memorable and in-depth characters. I had done character interviews before, but I learned so much more from Sherryl’s guidance and explanation through each question […]

By Rinkoo Ramchandani

Six months on, and the writing workshop regulars are bonding over laughter as the group forms its own dynamic personality, marked by comfort and camaraderie.

We have updated the rules to expand the word limit to 2,000 but to restrict re-writes to two rounds. The diversity of the prose submissions we’ve seen speaks to the exceptional talent of the participating WiPS members.

Two of our regulars are working on novels, painstakingly submitting […]

By Gillian Kew

Our Book Club has now been running for four months and we have read and reviewed four books, with opinions varying from “Meah!” to “Fab!”

We are a warm and friendly group, welcoming all opinions on our book choices and enjoying a lively, inter-book discourse via WhatsApp. During our monthly Zoom sessions, we have some great discussions about the books and the issues they raise. We don’t always agree, but where […]

By Carol Dyer

John Saeki and Pete Spurrier on how to earn your stripes in Hong Kong’s publishing industry. (Moderated by Suzanne Andrews)

Publishing John Saeki’s The Last Tigers of Hong Kong (ISBN: 978-988-75546-1-5) in the Year of the Tiger was serendipitous: Covid had delayed Blacksmith Books’ earlier planned release. It was equally unintentional that WiPS held its event on the eve of the International Day of the Tiger, 29 July (shamefully, we were […]

By Rinkoo Ramchandani

When Robyn Flemming co-started WiPS with Polly Yu in the early 1990s, she never imagined that 30 years later she would be sharing the journey of her recently published memoir with its members in a virtual meeting from halfway across the world. On 6 June 2022, on a rainy Hong Kong evening, that’s exactly what she did, zooming in from an equally wet London where she was promoting her book, […]