Why ‘WordWrights’?

The planning meetings of our proposed new writers’ group, held in the autumn of ’93, were useful, argumentative at times and often fun. The quiet room in the pub was an ideal location to decide how it would all happen, when and where and what.

Somehow, from very different standpoints, we evolved our aims. We all agreed on the principles of mutual support and encouragement by various means, including constructive criticism, as well as inviting professional writers from time to time to add important expertise. Also we would need a small committee to help things run smoothly.

Then – ‘What shall we call ourselves?’ After much pondering and random ideas, we abandoned the thought of some sort of a writers’ circle and moved from Wordsmiths to the more unusual WordWrights. This was greeted less with great enthusiasm than a feeling that it was the best so far and it was taken on as a ‘working title’. As members became attached to it, WordWrights was adopted as the undisputed ‘real’ name. The initial description ‘Fareham’ was dropped as it became less apt, with a change of meeting place and the wide geographical spread of members.

The bank still calls us Fareham WordWrights but then, they don’t respond well to change.

Obviously by moving into the technological field we had to put a name on the website and lo and behold we couldn’t have just ‘WordWrights’. So we settled on a compromise name for the site using the ‘Titchfield’ part of where we meet but will still refer to ourselves as ‘WordWrights’.