Zoom link: Writing for Change May 2025

Our next meet up will be all about how to get going on Substack

Our meeting of Writing for Change this Thursday evening will be all about how to get going on Substack.

Substack has changed my life as a writer. I first started writing 15 years ago when my middle daughter (whose birthday it is today!) was a baby, and my eldest, now 17, was the cutest little toddler. Since then I’ve tried to make a sole living from writing, and ‘just about managed’. I’ve written freelance for lots of different papers and magazines, which has brought in a sporadic income (I often think about the mother in the Railway Children and how they have ‘buns for tea’ on the rare occasion she sells one of her stories).

"I'm going to buy buns for tea," said Peter. "I thought you were all so poor," said the Station Master. "So we are," said Peter, confidentially, "but we always have three pennyworth of halfpennies for tea whenever Mother sells a story or a poem or anything."

Let me tell you a little bit about my own ‘buns for tea’ over the past 15 years.