The Writers' Group, A Novel by Alan Carmichael

Eight aspiring authors meet every fortnight to tidy up their novels before they embark on the precarious route towards the literary success they feel they deserve.

They've sat through the lectures. They've read the Creative Writing manuals. They know about point-of-view, characterisation, and playing God.

As Peter finds himself increasingly obsessed with the enigmatic Shelley - just as he plots the break-up of his hero's marriage - Virginia is starting to treat the group as replacement family now that her sons have left home. Kath is pressing for Chilean boyfriend to join the gang - even though he writes in Spanish - while Ben is playing the away game with another group.

Arthur just wants another drink. While Harriet and Lucy fret they'll never complete their books, at least not before the tweet makes the novel redundant.

Breezy, at times caustic and irreverent, The Writers' Group follows eight Londoners as they navigate their way round the agents and publishers who block their path towards publication.

And as they head off to France for a writers' retreat, where some hopes are realised and some dashed, they are forced to re-evaluate why it is they write, and why it is they seek to present their stories to the world.

And to rediscover the compelling power of fiction to help shape and make sense of all our lives.