New Writing North, founded in 1996, is an Arts Council England agency based in the North of England for the development of writing.
New Writing North was established in 1996 in Newcastle upon Tyne, [1] working with writers across the North East of England. In 2012 the agency became part of Arts Council England's National Portfolio programme and expanded its remit to cover the whole of the North of England. [2] New Writing North is a registered charity [3] and a limited company. [4]
New Writing North commissioned four poets to commemorate poet Andrew Waterhouse after his death in 2001, including "Song for the Crossing" by Sean O'Brien. The poems were set to music by Newcastle-based composer and musician Keith Morris. [5]
Newcastle, also commonly referred to as Greater Newcastle is a regional metropolitan area and the second-most-populous district of New South Wales, Australia. It includes the cities of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie and it is the hub of the Lower Hunter region, which includes most parts of the cities of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock, and Port Stephens Council. Newcastle is also known by its colloquial nickname, Newy.
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
Market Drayton is a market town and civil parish on the banks of the River Tern in Shropshire, England. It is close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is located between the towns of Whitchurch, Wem, Nantwich, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newport and the city of Stoke on Trent. The town is on the Shropshire Union Canal and bypassed by the A53 road.
Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, 16 miles (26 km) west of Newcastle and 4 miles (6 km) east of Hexham. Villages nearby include Halton, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe.
Fleur Adcock is a New Zealand poet and editor, of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Victoria University of Wellington, and was awarded an OBE in 1996 for her contribution to New Zealand literature. In 2008 she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. The arts funding system in England underwent considerable reorganisation in 2002 when all of the regional arts boards were subsumed into Arts Council England and became regional offices of the national organisation.
Midlands Arts Centre also known as MAC is a non-profit contemporary arts centre situated in Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. It was established in 1962 and is registered as an arts charity. It presents a dynamic programme of art exhibitions, independent cinema, live performances and creative courses for all ages as well as offering spaces for hire within the building.
North Shields is a town in the borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is 8 miles (13 km) north-east of Newcastle upon Tyne and borders nearby Wallsend and Tynemouth.
Catharine Jan Morris was a Welsh historian, author and travel writer. She was known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy (1968–1978), a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, including Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong and New York City. She published under her birth name, James, until 1972, when she had gender reassignment surgery after transitioning from male to female.
Robert Macfarlane is a British writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Peter Straughan is a British playwright, screenwriter and author, based in the north-east of England. He was writer-in-residence at Newcastle's Live Theatre Company. Whilst there, Live staged his plays, Bones and Noir. Both of these plays have displayed Straughan's talent for writing dark, twisted and witty stories.
Leeds Playhouse is a theatre in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1990 in the Quarry Hill area of the city as the West Yorkshire Playhouse, successor to the original Leeds Playhouse, and was rebranded in June 2018 to revert to the title "Leeds Playhouse". It has two auditoria and a studio space, hosts a wide range of productions, and engages in outreach work in the local community.
The Arvon Foundation is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom that promotes creative writing. Arvon is one of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations.
Literature Wales, formerly named the Academi, is the Welsh national literature promotion agency and society of writers, existing to promote Welsh-language and English-language literature in Wales. It offers bursaries for writing projects, runs literary events and lectures, and provides financial assistance for creative mentoring and other literary-based ventures. The organisation also selects the National Poet for Wales, and manages competitions including Wales Book of the Year, the Cardiff International Poetry Competition, and the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition.
Sean O'Brien FRSL is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only four poets to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems.
Samuel Wagan Watson is a contemporary Indigenous Australian poet.
Bangor University is a public research university in Bangor, Wales. It received its Royal Charter in 1885 and was one of the founding institutions of the federal University of Wales.
Andrew Waterhouse was an English poet and musician, born in Lincolnshire.
HOME is an arts centre, cinema and theatre complex in Manchester, England. With five cinemas, two theatres and 500 m2 (5,400 sq ft) of gallery space, it is one of the few arts organisations to commission, produce and present work across film, theatre and visual art.
Keith Morris was a British multi-instrumentalist jazz musician, composer and bandleader.