I’m a little ahead of myself; through the heat of June days, July is approaching. For me it will be an exciting month on the writing front. In the third week of July the New Forest Players are celebrating their ninetieth anniversary. Last year they ran a short play competition to mark the occasion. NFP will be staging six short plays, three for younger generations and three for an older audience.

My play, A PLACE OF REFUGE is one of those being performed. I wish the company well and look forward to seeing the plays on stage. My play follows the hours after four young Afghan refugee stowaways escape from a lorry delivering to an English factory. Three are taken into custody, one escapes to hide in a garden shed where he is discovered by the retired farmworker cottage owner. The play follows the exchanges, differing opinions and emotions between the members of the family living at the cottage, father, daughter and student granddaughter, whose boyfriend is a local policeman.

Another excitement arises for me with the Dorchester Literary Festival Writing Competition for books privately published by West Country authors in the last three years, fiction, non-fiction, poetry or short stories. The original entry was longlisted down to seven books. My novel REQUIEM FOR PRIVATE HUGHES was on that list and I was thrilled to find out earlier in June that it had made the shortlist of three now being finally judged. The winner will be announced at a gathering on 12^th July after those shortlisted have been interviewed by Kate Adie, a Patron of the Dorchester Literary Festival, and have read a short extract of their work. Fingers crossed and all best to my fellow shortlisted writers.