What I have come to realise over these past two meetings is the value of reading aloud – not only is it a great self-editing tool, because you will always find the mistakes you’ve skimmed a hundred times when reading silently to yourself, but it is such a different way of sharing your work. Your fellow writers are not sitting with their red pen poised and ready to hack and slash your work to pieces, they are able to sit and enjoy the timbre of your voice, the flow of your story, to really listen to the voice you heard inside your head when you wrote it – they hear it as you intend it to be heard.

Yes, readings are useful for critiquing purposes, but more than that, they allow your writing to do what all good writing should do – share your story with others. And, writers being writers, it allows those people who might otherwise be too busy looking for mistakes or ways to improve, to simply enjoy hearing the story you want to tell.

In this last meeting, I was reminded once again that I have found such a diversely talented group of writers with whom to share work, and that is a miracle, given that we are living in a foreign country, surrounded by a foreign language. Never have I felt this miracle more keenly than I do now as I look through the work we have assembled for this anthology. I can’t wait for it to be released, and I am so proud to be a part of it.

The yet-to-be-named Oslo International Writers’ Group anthology will be released in time for Norway’s national day on the 17th May 2013.