We hope you're soaking up the incredible rays this summer - and also taking some time to put pen to paper. We have some great news to share with you - literary opportunities, new publications from our community, writing retreats and a new project exploring childhood home.
Thanks and see you soon!
The Writing Our Legacy Team
Last chance to apply to NWS10
The NWS10 scheme provides bespoke support to 10 talented writers for one year, offering free support. It's aimed at talented writers in the early stages of their career.
Individual support could include:
Script and manuscript reads / reports
One to one surgeries
Mentoring
Individual career advice
Legal advice
Advice on mentoring and funding
Introductions and recommendations to producers and companies
New Writing South is looking for talent, potential and enthusiasm, and this process is open to poets, playwrights, novelists or any other kind of creative writer.
Deadline: 31 July, please quote Writing Our Legacy. If you have any queries, email jade@newwritingsouth.com or call 01273 735353.
Debut novel 'Belonging' by Umi Sinha
Our very own creative writing teacher and storyteller Umi Sinha will have her first novel published this September through Hove-based publisher Myriad Books.
We are absolutely thrilled for Umi and her great news. The publication date for 'Belonging' is 17 September. Have a look on the publisher website for launch dates and book sales.
Umi Sinha’s unforgettable debut is an intense, compelling and finely wrought epic of love and loss, of race and ethnicity, of homeland – and of belonging.
Lila Langdon is twelve years old when she witnesses a family tragedy after her mother unveils her father’s surprise birthday present – a tragedy that ends her childhood in India and precipitates a new life in Sussex with her great-aunt Wilhelmina.
From the darkest days of the British Raj through to the aftermath of the First World War, Belonging tells the interwoven story of three generations and their struggles to understand and free themselves from a troubled history steeped in colonial violence. It is a novel of secrets that unwind through Lila’s story, through her grandmother’s letters home from India and the diaries kept by her father, Henry, as he puzzles over the enigma of his birth and his stormy marriage to the mysterious Rebecca.
Jacob Ross - "An important novel, told beautifully with arresting delicacy and sensitivity."
Writing Our Legacy producer and writer Uschi Gatward had her short story 'The Clinic' selected for the Best British Short Stories 2015 anthology, published by Salt.
Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or more accurately, by its title. Authors include Hilary Mantel, Alison Moore, Jenn Ashworth, Helen Simpson, Charles Wilkinson, Rebecca Swirsky, Matthew Sperling, Julianne Pachico, KJ Orr, Bee Lewis, Uschi Gatward, Emma Cleary and Neil Campbell.
This September, we will be running free one day workshops to help you explore your childhood home - and bring it to life, in a new project called No Place Like Home.
Travel back in time to that house, town, neighbourhood or country where you grew up, with the help of writer Amy Zamarripa Solis and acclaimed visual artists Larry Achiapong and David Blandy. During the day, artist Aikaterini Gegsian will create a film about participants lives. You will explore a variety of mediums including oral history, film, drawing, writing, and other visual arts and literature.
Workshops will take place in Brighton, Crawley, Milton Keynes and Bristol. Lunch will be provided and you will have a chance to share your memories and stories at a sharing later in October, where the final film will be screened.
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Writing Retreat in Portugal with Bridget Whelan
Join Brighton-based writer Bridget Whelan on a week-long writers retreat near Lisbon.
The workshops are open to beginners who have always wanted to write as well as to emerging and more experienced writers – so you can come with a work in progress stowed in your luggage or just an empty page (in fact a lot of empty pages – we’re going to do lots of writing).
Description – creating the sense of ‘being there’ in the reader
Finding inspiration – defeating the blank page
Suspense
Workshop Dates
Week 1 – 21st September 2015
Week 2 – 28th September 2015 Week 3 – 4th April 2016 Week 4 – 11th April 2016
Price: £495.00 includes: accommodation, first night dinner/reception, breakfast (Tue – Fri), lunch on Workshop days, Tour (minibus) with restaurant lunch, Workshop and tuition.
Non-writing partners can book and discount for writers sharing a room - see website for more details.