New Tagman Writers' Consortium Inaugurated

Tuesday 3 May 2011: Tagman Press, "the small publisher with the big heart" recently re-structured in Norwich, England following a de-merger, has taken a great leap forward by founding at the weekend -- on the day of the Royal Wedding -- what is believed to be a unique, new Tagman Writers' Consortium, writes Pamela Masters.

Twelve putative new Tagman writers -- by chance six female, and six male -- attended the inaugural round-table meeting under the chairmanship of Tagman's founder Anthony Grey in the boardroom at Reeds Restaurant, Tombland, just outside the main gate of the spectacularly beautiful Norwich Cathedral. The authors, over a five-hour period either side of lunch, talked in turn about their planned books of fiction, non-fiction, autobiography and poetry and discussed and investigated how they might collaborate constructively and support each other in this time of austerity, in the editing, design, proof reading and the public promotion of their traditional and e-books in both the conventional media and on the worldwide social networking circuits of the internet. Tagman, founded in l997, had been successfully merged with a digital print company in 2006 but has recently been returned to Anthony Grey's sole ownership, hence this new innovation among others.

At the inaugural meeting, Manchester-born, now London-based Gill Dalton, described the dramas and challenges of her powerful forthcoming autobiographical book Fearlessly Female that narrates her life from the time of her work as Peter Dalton, a petroleum engineer in Iran during the convulsive period of the overthrow of the Shah in the late 1970s, to her present status as an accomplished female writer and charity trustee. Thailand, Ireland and other countries figure in the background to this remarkable story.

Pauline and Dave Kelly outlined the genesis of A Pathway Back, the possibly true story of a hitherto unknown attempt to assassinate Hitler over a year before the ending of the Second World War. Dave Kelly is a specialist flint bricklayer working in Norfolk and his wife Pauline an experienced complimentary healer and psychic, helped him when he suddenly felt moved to write down in painstaking longhand, well-marshalled detailed information that began 'channelling' itself insistently to him several years ago. It purports to come individually from seven separate young US aircrew members mostly in their twenties, who angrily claim they were all treacherously shot down and killed when their unmarked B-17 bomber crashed in flames on the night of 10 February 1944 immediately after taking off from their airbase just outside Norwich -- but by their own Allied guns! They say they are seeking justice in the extraordinarily well ordered and professionally composed text that Dave Kelly admits he simply could never have composed himself. Intriguingly, some of the US aircrew names given in the 'channelled' text have been confirmed by the authors from local historical USAAF records

Hertfordshire-based screenwriter Robin Squire spoke wryly of his forthcoming dark-humour 'reality novel' The Making of a Britflick detailing a long-drawn out real-life drama which haunted the writing and production of a film on which he worked for several years. Paul Dickson and Illumine Nganemariya, joint Norwich-resident authors of Miracle in Kigali, the true story of Illuminee's extraordinary survival of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 individuals perished, explained why a completely new edition of the book is planned for later this year. Illuminee carried her new-born, days-old son Roger on her back throughout the four month trauma which saw her husband murdered -- and the new edition of her story is being extended to cover the remarkable recent sudden leap to film stardom by Norwich-educated Roger, now aged sixteen, in the new, internationally-successful feature film Africa United.

Yoga teacher Jane Aldiss confidently outlined her recently conceived plans for a non-fiction volume focusing on the deeper philosophy and origins of yoga rather than its purely physical aspects; psychotherapist Susan Culverwell from North London read and commented on samples of her own sanity-saving poetry which she began to write in the wake of personal emotional traumas of her own which confronted her recently out of the blue; Roger Chamberlain, a brave and gallant battler against multiple sclerosis over many years, entertainingly revealed how amusing, very well written stories about a small and endearing but slightly mystical disability vehicle called Hetty had sprung into his mind recently and had ever since been insistently demanding to be published.

Ealing-based international Public Relations specialist Michael Bland, who has had a dozen successful books published nationally in the past, proposed ideas for bringing out new editions of his humour books about appalling road users, originally entitled A Pig at the Wheel and A Bigger Pig at the Wheel, and Dr John Clements, a Norwich life strategist coach and specialist public speaker already published in the United States, revealed details of of his next UK book to be entitled Excellence Becomes You.

All participants afterwards hailed the experimental meeting as an overwhelming success - and a further meeting was scheduled for October this year. "It was a privilege to be a thorn among so many roses," commented Roger Chamberlain modestly on seeing the group photograph of the occasion on Facebook. " Apart from anything else, it gave me a great number of new ideas for my own writing." Jane Aldiss said of the gathering: "A truly wonderful and what felt auspicious meeting and every attendee was a pleasure to meet. It felt to me as a believer in karma that we are a bunch of old companions who have met a long time ago, and are now gathered again to crusade for the light." Gill Dalton said : "I felt honoured to have been there and to have shared the day with such beautiful and special people. As individuals we are unique and multi-talented. As a combined force we will be unstoppable !" Susan Culverwell commented: "For me it was good to meet with other writers and to listen to their experiences in the field. It is a talented, creative and I have to say spiritually-orientated group." Paul Dickson summed it up simply in four short words: "It was just brilliant"

See http://www.tagmanpress.co.uk.

Picture:
Back L to R: Dave Kelly, Pauline Kelly, Illuminee Nganemariya, Robin Squire, Pamela Masters, Michael Bland, John Clements. Front L to R: Paul Dickson, Susan Culverwell, Gill Dalton, Anthony Grey, Roger Chamberlain, Jane Aldiss.