09 March 2000

Venue: Simon & Pil’s (Paddington)

The inaugural Slush meeting was held at Simon and Pil’s house in Paddington in March 2000. Only three people attended this historic meeting huddled around a glass table in a third floor attic. They were Peter G, Pil and Karen. Sadly Simon was working downstairs at the time and thus missed out on his place as one of the founding fathers.

Although much is lost about this important evening, the main discussions were simply about how to set up the group, how often should it meet and of course what to call it!

One eyewitness recalls that the first exercise was to write a piece (not a story) called Seven Things About Myself and write about seven ordinary real events or qualities and make it interesting.

This exercise came about because the three pre-slushers sat around the glass table wondering what to do with this new group, when Pil remembered an exercise from her creative writing class back at college. Her teacher, Geoff Caban, had used it to get people started when they didn’t know what to write.

And thus it all began...