“IF YOU can read this thank a teacher” goes the car sticker.

Anna Chilvers, the speaker at the Octobermeeting of the Airedale Writers’ Circle, expressed her gratitude to a Miss Taylor, an inspirational teacher at her primary school, though not for help in reading (as she was already a bookworm at four years old!) but her declaring “Anna’s going to be a writer”.

Evidently the perceptive Miss Taylor recognised Anna’s talent for creative writing, and her encouragement – and that of her parents – led to Anna winning first prize in a local short story competition when she was eleven.

Four years later Anna won the under 18 year old section of a national “mini saga” competition, with her entry (of exactly 50 words, as instructed) published in a 1982 Sunday Telegraph magazine.

More than 15 years then passed before Anna wrote her first novel, side-tracked by her abilities at other subjects than English at school and a desire to become an educational psychologist. However while at university Anna succumbed to a sudden urge to resume writing, dropping out of the Psychology course and instead getting a job in a bookshop.

As she was – and remains – an avid reader this proved highly enjoyable, as did other work in libraries. Anna then became adept at organizing conferences, a skill she found helped her later in constructing novels, admitting the connection was not at all obvious, but was to do with planning ahead.

Her need to write however drove her back to college, this time for a degree in English, when she was 30, and following this she completed a novel in just eight months. Despite many subsequent rejections of this work she remained thrilled to have at last written a book.

Anna persevered and finally had her first novel –Falling Through Clouds – published in 2010. Then during a year (2012) as writer-in-residence for the Pennine Watershed Landscape Project she wrote four short stories, published together in a collection entitled Legging It, and her second novel –Tainted Love – is due out in January 2016.

Anna explained how she usually had an idea of how her novels would end and, before starting to compose one, mapped out on a chart, in a few sentences, what each chapter would cover.

She felt it was essential to have “back stories” of her characters, ie full details of their appearance, lives, habits and so on, to ensure they seemed believable, even though many of these descriptions may not appear on the page. She emphasized that there was no one correct way to write a novel, adding her recommendation of the acclaimed How Not to Write a Novel, written by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittlemark.

Anna gave us all a hand-out outlining the three Acts – “set up”, “middle”, “resolution” – that define the shape of every story, and impressed us with her enthusiasm and perseverance, despite setbacks including a publisher’s rejection of just “No thanks”!

The next meeting of the Airedale Writers’ Circle will be at 7.30pm on November 11, at Sight Airedale, Scott Street, Keighley, as usual.

Neil Wilson