This is a page for our friends – people who used to be members of Pens Around the World and/or who have written us one or more guest blog posts.
Laura Besley | Angela Williams | Pete Armstrong | Jim McCrory | Patricia Cole | Sue Borgersen
Like to appear here? Drop us a line using our contact form and pitch your guest blog post!
Note for Friends: If you want to check our copyright policy as it applies to material published on site and credited to you, please visit our Copyright page here.
Sue Borgersen, who writes as S.B. Borgersen, is a British/Canadian author of English and Hebridean ancestry. Her favoured genres are micro, flash fiction, and poetry. Her publisher is Unsolicited Press and a her most recent titles from them are While the Kettle Boils (150 micro fictions) and Of Daisies and Dead Violins (poetry), both published in 2021. Forthcoming in 2023 is The Sequence Dance, a collection of forty of her award-winning short stories. Sue’s website is at Glorious Mud Studios.
Sue was a member of Pens around the World in 2021 and 2022. During that time she wrote us the following blog posts: Launching Books during Pandemic Lockdowns | Poems Please (Pensive) | Acknowledging Writing Groups | Profile your Characters Like a Pro (Pensive) | When Writing is Akin to Knitting | Encounters and signs (Pensive)
Patricia Cole is a retired accountant. An unfortunate accident left her unable to work full time so she decided to turn her hand to something completely different. She discovered an aptitude for writing fiction and has had some success with short stories and at the grand age of 75 had her first novel A Greek Summer published under her maiden name of Patricia Frew. She was born in Scotland but has lived in Canada, the Turks and Caicos Islands, a small island in Greece for 15+ years. She now lives in East Anglia.
See and hear Patricia reading from her novel A Greek Summer.
A Founder Member of Pens Around the World, Patricia has written the following posts for us: Harness Your Passion | Does Living Abroad Broaden Your Mind (Pensive) | Common Mistakes | Unforgettable Experiences (Pensive) | Philological Challenge (Pensive) | Spring is in the Air
Jim McCrory has an MA in Creative Writing and BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. Although he specialises in the personal essay form, he also likes to try his hand at poetry and flash fiction. His short story, ‘Taken for a Ride’, set in Sicily was published (2020) in A Multilingual Decameron: Stories of a Different World. He is currently working on a series of personal essays under the theme What It Means to be Human. Jim has lived in Norway and travelled around the globe, but his home is on Scotland’s West Coast where, he writes, “the Atlantic winds bend me, and the colours make me young.”
Jim was a probationary member of PATW for a period in 2022, before leaving us to join a group formed with his MA coursemates.
Before he left, Jim wrote us the following Bi-weekly Wisdom blog post: The Art of the Personal Essay.
Pete Armstrong once threw a two-pitch inning; once took a wrong turning and got lost in The Bronx; once walked into a moose; once had a cryptic crossword published; once solved a mathematics problem that had defeated Paul Erdős; once played in an actual ice hockey game; once worked as a secret boffin; once won a fiction competition; once ran a marathon; once read Jerome K. Jerome in Swedish; once hit a walk-off home run; once had a book published; once won a judo black belt; once programmed a supercomputer; once came last in a county 1500 metres final; once illustrated his own children’s book; once threw 180 in a darts match; once walked to work in -30 C; once won a pool game with a full table clearance; once got happily married; four times held his newly born child and countless times read his children books, which is the best thing ever.
Visit Pete’s blog: http://www.petearmstrong.com
Pete was a Founder Member of Pens Around the World
Angela Williams writes using the pseudonym Susan Carey. Since 1986 she has lived in the Netherlands where she writes stories in between the less demanding jobs of house-sitting, dog-walking and dreaming of worldwide renown. She has had short stories and flash fiction published and performed by, amongst others, Mslexia, Liars’ League, Writers Abroad, Reflex Fiction, Flash Flood Journal, The Fabulist Magazine and Casket of Fictional Delights. In 2020 she published her story collection, Healer. Available on Amazon.
Visit Angela’s blog: https://amsterdamoriole.com/writing/
Follow Angela on Twitter: @su_carey
A Founder Member of Pens Around the World, Angela has written the following blog posts for us: Ten Remarkable Facts about Nijmegen | An Ostentation of Peacocks (Pensive) | Hair, our Crowning Glory | Monday Muse 5 April (Pensive)
Laura Besley is the author of micro fiction collection, 100neHundred (Arachne Press, 2021), and flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers (Dahlia Books, 2020). Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea.
Follow Laura on Twitter @laurabesley
Follow Laura on Instagram @besley_laura
Laura was the first non-member Guest Blogger at Pens Around the World. She has written the following post for us: Writing is Like a Team Sport
