Newsletter: 24 April 2020
New Writing North update
Dear friends, we trust and hope that you are keeping well during this very strange time. We wanted to update you on our current plans for activity, some of which have had to be adapted or postponed.
Our focus over the past few weeks has been to review all existing activity and to understand how best to address the current challenges as we adjust to working remotely. We are grateful that we have many projects that can and will continue during this period and hope to be able to still offer paid work to many writers and practitioners as we shift our plans from live events to new forms of delivery.
As we begin to think about what ‘recovery’ from this moment will look like for New Writing North please be assured that we understand recovery to be not just for our own organisation, but for the networks of writers and practitioners that we know depend on and value our programmes of work. We’ll be thinking hard about how best to do this over the next few weeks. Read more about our projects and plans
New trustees join the board of New Writing North
We're very excited to welcome six new leaders from publishing and industry to our board of trustees, to help New Writing North move forward with plans to establish a centre for writing and publishing in Newcastle upon Tyne.
The new trustees bring skills in capital development, publishing, communications and legal to enhance the skillset of the existing board of industry professionals, writers and arts industry specialists. Read our announcement here and find out more about all of our staff and trustees.
People and publishers
Support two independent publishers in a time of crisis by buying a brand new short story by the award winning novelist Ben Myers. A Stone Statue in the Future is available exclusively from the Little Toller website as an e-book. All proceeds will be divided between Little Toller, Bluemoose and the author.
To help you through the current crisis the Poetry Book Society in Newcastle have launched a special Isolation Promotion. Join the Poetry Book Society today as a new Choice Member and you'll receive a FREE poetry parcel containing a poetry gift book from their recent PBS Spring Selections and the Spring Bulletin magazine - full of poems, reviews and interviews to keep you entertained in self-isolation. PBS Members enjoy a whole year of quarterly poetry parcels delivered straight to their door as well as access to their lively online poetry community, so that's 5 PBS poetry parcels for the price of 4! All members also receive 25% off book purchases at www.poetrybooks.co.uk. Find out more here.
Listen out for The Dam, a new story by David Almond, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 this Sunday 26 April at 4.30pm.
We're delighted that Jo Clement's debut pamphlet Moveable Type, published by New Writing North, is shortlisted for the Best Poetry Pamphlet at the Saboteur Awards 2020. You can vote for Jo - and many other brilliant writers and small publishers - here.
Congratulations to New North Poet Sarah Wimbush, whose debut poetry pamphlet Bloodlines won the Mslexia/ Poetry Book Society Women’s Poetry Prize 2019 and has now been published by Seren Books. Bloodlines is available to buy now. Sarah recently blogged for us about her writing retreat along with the other New North Poets at Garsdale.
The Selling and Self-Regulation of Contemporary Poetry is the first book-length study of the contemporary poetry industry, written by JT Welsch and published by Anthem Press, available here.
Sunderland writer Glenda Young has won this year's Evesham Festival of Words Short Story Competition 2020 with her short story 'The Fan Club Man'.
And congratulations to Beda Higgins, who has won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize 2020 and wins publication of her first poetry collection with Indigo Dreams Publishing.
The 2020 SI Leeds Literary Prize is a biennial award for unpublished fiction in English by UK-based Black and Asian women, with a strong track-record fof its winners going on to publication. New Writing North is proud to be one of the prize’s supporters. Apply by Thursday 30 April.
The Bristol Short Story Prize is open for entry to writers based anywhere in the world until Thursday 30 April, with a first prize of £1000.
The Poetry London Prize is a major, internationally renowned award for a single outstanding poem. This year's judge is Ilya Kaminsky. First prize is £5,000, second prize is £2,000, and third prize is £1,000. Enter by midnight on 1 May at https://poetrylondon.co.uk/competition/.
The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition is looking for poems on just that – nature or place – until 1 May, with a first place prize of £1000.
The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition is seeking entries from unpublished and unagented writers with original and exciting stories for 7-to-18-year-olds. irst prize is a worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House with a royalty advance of £10,000, plus an offer of representation from top literary agent, Kate Shaw of the Shaw Agency. Deadline extended to 1 June.
The Nature Writing Prize for working-class writers is open for submissions of up to 1000 words of poetry, fiction, non-fiction or hybrid writing, by writers who identify as working-class. Prize includes publication in the Countryman magazine, one year of Little Toller books, and a one-to-one mentoring session with Natasha Carthew. To enter email workingclassnatureprize@gmail.com by 7 June.
The Aurora Prize, from Writing East Midlands and judged by Mahsuda Snaith and Helen Mort, seeks outstanding new writing in short fiction (of up to 2,000 words) and poetry (of up to 60 lines). The deadline for entries is Monday 8th June 2020 at midnight. Enter here
The Walter Swan Poetry Prize is a competition for writers of poetry aged 18 and over. The prize is run by Ilkley Literature Festival in partnership with The Walter Swan Trust, and is accepting entries based on the theme ‘A Kindness’ until 31 July 2020. There are also competitions for children and young people from Yorkshire and Lancashire on the same theme.
Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is open to anyone aged 11-17 and will be judged by Maura Dooley and Keith Jarrett. Apply by 31 July
Payal Ramchandani has been commissioned by Dance City to create and present a full length dance-theatre production titled 'The boy who grew a forest' and is looking to find a writer to collaborate with on this project, an inter-generational piece of work with greater focus on children. You can find out more about Payal and contact her via her website.
The Print Futures Awards are open until Sunday 26 April. They offer grants of up to £1,500 each to fund relevant UK training courses to support people aged 18 to 30 years in the UK printing, paper, packaging, publishing, and graphic arts sector.
If you would like help developing an idea for a novel into a complete draft manuscript, don't miss the chance to apply for Writer’s Block, based in Middlesbrough, which closes this Monday 27 April. The programme will offer 12 writers a year-long mentoring programme, including seven day-long workshops and 14 hours of 1-to-1 mentoring. Find out more
Would you like to see your poems in a hand-stitched portfolio? Coast to Coast to Coast will award two poets, who will each receive 15 copies of their poetry journal with hand-stitched covers. Apply by 30 April 2020.
Boudicca Press is looking for speculative autobiography about experiences of misbehaving bodies, from women and those who self-identify as women, in the UK. From experiences with operations, chronic pain, cancer, childbirth, disability or more. Read more and submit work by 7 May 2020.
Penguin Random House’s WriteNow campaign to discover under-represented writers is now open until 31 May (extended deadline). The initial meetings, which were due to take place around the country, will now take place online.
Live Theatre, Newcastle, has extended the submission window for 10 Minutes To… until 30 April. This is a short play project where writers submit plays that respond to a specific theme. The current theme is Call Home and writers can respond to it in any way they see fit. A selection of these plays are chosen to be produced. It also has a script submission window open until 31 May.
Fly on the Wall Press is looking for poetry, art and photography which embody the spirit of Manchester and paint a picture of the changing city, for submission to its new anthology, Mancunian Ways. Submit work by 6 June 2020.
Newcastle University is offering a scholarship award worth £7,800 (full fees) for an outstanding applicant to the Poetry School / Newcastle MA in Writing Poetry for 2020/21 entry. Find out more and apply by 31 July
Curtis Brown Creative is offering free weekly writing workouts, with the option to pay a fee for editorial feedback.
The Author’s Emergency Fund from the Society of Authors offers emergency grants for those who have been affected by the coronavirus. Applications are open to all professional authors who are resident in the UK or British subjects – including all types of writers, illustrators, literary translators, scriptwriters, poets, journalists and others – for whom author-related activities make up a substantial amount of their annual income. Find out more
Caroline Burrows is presenting a Literary Cycling Tour of the North: From Jane Eyre to Dracula as part of the Virtual Cycle Touring Festival, which runs 25-26 April and has a full and varied line-up. Find out more
At Home With 4 Indies is a partnership of independent bookshops, Linghams in Heswell, Book-ish in Crickhowell, Forum Books in Corbridge, and Booka Bookshop in Oswestry. Together they’re hosting Facebook Live events with leading authors including Sebastian Barry on 27 April, Frank Cottrell Boyce on 28 April, Marian Keyes on 30 April. Find out more
Comma Press is running short story masterclasses on its Facebook page, related to its latest anthology Morphologies. The next session is on Tuesday 5 May at 7pm, when Jane Rogers will be discussing Dostoyevsky. Future masterclasses include Alison MacLeod on Katherine Mansfield (19 May) and Sean O’Brien on Edgar Allen Poe (5 June).
Oldham Libraries is running a Facebook Live event with previous Read Regional author Phaedra Patrick to celebrate the launch of her new book, The Secrets of Sunshine. Thursday 14 May, 7.30-9pm. Register your interest here
Want to write a book, but don’t know where to start? Bestselling author Adele Parks is presenting a free online masterclass on Saturday 16 May, 2-3pm. Sign up on Eventbrite for details of how to join and a masterclass worksheet.
If you have news that you would like to be considered for inclusion in the newsletter please contact laurafraine@newwritingnorth.com. The deadline for receipt of information for the next newsletter is 18 May 2020.
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this newsletter is correct at the time of going to press, things do change, frequently at the last minute and very often without our knowledge.
