Gordon Burn Prize Opens for Submissions

New Writing North, in association with Faber & Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust, is delighted to announce the second year of The Gordon Burn Prize and to open the award to new submissions.

The first Gordon Burn Prize, created to honour the literary legacy of the late Newcastle-born author, was announced at a special event in October at the 2013 Durham Book Festival when author Ben Myers scooped the prize with his novel, Pig Iron. As winner, he received a cheque for £5,000 and the opportunity to undertake a three-month writing retreat at Gordon’s own cottage in Berwickshire.

The Gordon Burn Prize is open to both fiction and non-fiction titles written in English that capture the spirit of Gordon’s writing. Gordon was a novelist undaunted by convention or genre, and the judges are looking for a writer with a similarly intrepid approach to their craft. Publishers are invited to enter exceptional fiction that dares to enter history and interrogate the past, and non-fiction on subjects such as sport, art, crime and popular culture that is brave enough to recast characters and historical events to create a new and vivid reality.

The book that wins the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize will be literature which challenges perceived notions of genre, a piece of writing that makes us think again about just what it is that we are reading. New Writing North is delighted to be part of an award that not only honours an author as significant and challenging as Gordon Burn, but also encourages other authors to follow his example and push the boundaries of their work.

“The Gordon Burn Prize rewards innovative work across both fiction and non-fiction which best represents the spirit of Gordon’s prose,” said Faber Social creative director Lee Brackstone. “In a celebrity-saturated world, which is increasingly documented in monochrome and monotonous style, it is thrilling to be associated with a prize that embraces adventurous and unusual ways of engaging with the culture.”

The judges for the 2014 prize are artist Sarah Lucas; poet and novelist John Burnside; comedian, actor and musician Julian Barratt; and 2013 winner Ben Myers.

Deadline for submissions: 14th February 2014

Please see www.newwritingnorth.com for full terms and conditions as well as submission guidelines and visit www.gordonburntrust.com for further details on Gordon’s work and the prize.

Northern Writers’ Awards Call for Submissions

£40,000 of prizes and support available to talented writers in the north of England

Deadline for submissions: Friday 17th January 2014, 5pm

New Writing North is delighted to announce that the Northern Writers’ Awards are now open for submissions. The Northern Writers’ Awards were established in 2000 as a pioneering programme that aimed to support both new and established writers in the pursuit of their creative ambitions. Since then the awards have supported over 150 writers, many of whom have gone on to achieve publication of their work in the UK and internationally.

Originally open only to writers in the North East, the awards, thanks to the support of Northumbria University, are now open to writers in the North East, North West and Yorkshire. The awards support writers of prose, poetry, creative non-fiction and children’s fiction. From this year there will also be a new programme of awards for young writers: the Cuckoo Young Writers Award and the Matthew Hale Award.

For new writers, winning a Northern Writers’ Award helps to get them noticed by agents and publishers and lifts them onto the first rung of the ladder towards publication. For more established writers, awards can buy precious time to undertake a new project or to support work in progress that has not yet been commissioned. The support that winning writers receive includes cash awards alongside mentoring, editorial feedback and support and help with professional development within the writing industry.

Past winners of the Northern Writers’ Awards include novelist and poet Carolyn Jess-Cooke, who won both a Northern Promise Award in 2008 and a Poetry Award in 2013; Niel Bushnell, who met his agent through the awards and has gone on to publish the popular children’s Timesmith series, and writer Ben Myers, whose Pig Iron has been critically acclaimed and won the 2013 inaugural Gordon Burn Prize.

Source: New Writing North

Get on air with Verb New Voices - call for poets!

Do you have something to say? Can you say it in verse – blank or free? Verb New Voices is looking for three talented artists (two between 18-30 and one of any age) from the north of England to create and perform a piece of new work for The Verb on Radio 3. The project – created by Arts Council England and supported by the BBC and organisations across the North, including New Writing North – aims to generate vibrant new writing that reflects something unique about Northern culture.

All you have to do to apply is write a statement of why you want to take part in the project, a professional biography and an outline of the piece you want to perform. Then record yourself – a mobile phone video uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo is fine – performing any piece of work (it doesn’t have to be the piece you want to develop).

Selected artists will receive a bursary of £2,500 and a package of in-kind support that includes professional development, working with voice coaches and a fully-funded place on an Arvon residential creative writing course. Deadline for entries: Friday 13th December 2013. 

To find out more or to enter, click here.

Gordon Burn Prize Shortlist Announced

New Writing North are delighted to reveal the shortlist for the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize, which was announced at the launch for the 2013 Durham Book Festival. The prize was set up by Gordon’s publisher Faber & Faber, New Writing North, and the Gordon Burn Trust to celebrate books which capture the spirit and sensibility of Gordon’s writing.

Born and raised in Newcastle – his mother worked at Binns, his father was a paint-sprayer and Gordon was a regular visitor to St James’ Park football ground – Gordon Burn, who died in 2009, is known as a writer who never shied away from a controversial or complicated story. For him, no subject or character was beyond fictionalising; from Peter Sutcliffe, Alma Cogan, George Best and Bobby Charlton, to Damien Hirst, Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher.

Renowned novelist David Peace, author of The Damned United and the Red Riding Quartet, was at the launch to announce the eclectic and exciting shortlist. Peace is one of the judges for the prize, along with journalist Deborah Orr and novelist and broadcaster Mark Lawson.

The 2013 shortlist, which includes fiction and non-fiction, from small and big publishers alike, and authors from all over the UK, is:

How I Killed Margaret Thatcher by Anthony Cartwright (Tindal Street Press)
The Footballer Who Could Fly by Duncan Hamilton (Century)
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry (Jonathan Cape)
Pig Iron by Benjamin Myers (Blue Moose Books)
Myra, Beyond Saddleworth by Jean Rafferty (Wild Wolf Publishing)

The winner will be announced on 19th October at a special event during Durham Book Festival at 6.30pm in Durham Town Hall, with the shortlisted authors reading from their work accompanied by music from Field Music’s Dave Brewis. Tickets are on sale from 10am on Thursday 8th August. For full details of the festival, including how to buy tickets for this and all the other events, see www.durhambookfestival.com.

Please see the Gordon Burn Trust website for further details on The Gordon Burn Prize as well as information on Gordon’s work.

Cuckoo young reviewers masterclasses back for 2013

Following our very successful series of masterclasses in 2012, New Writing North and Juice Festival are partnering up again to bring together some of the UK’s top arts writers and young journalists from the North.

This year aspiring young journalists can choose from in-depth reviewing workshops with Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner and art critic for The Independent Zoe Pilger. Guardian features writer Laura Barton will lead a workshop on creative ways to write about music, and we’re pleased to welcome back Danny Leigh (BBC’s Film 2013) who will be exploring how to write features about film.

Taking place in some of the region’s most prestigious cultural venues over August and October, the free masterclasses are a unique opportunity for young writers (aged 16-21) to get invaluable advice from acclaimed journalists, develop their arts writing skills, and get their work published in Cuckoo Review, the UK’s online arts magazine written by young writers.

To apply and for more information, go to www.newwritingnorth.com/young-cuckoo-young-reviewers-masterclass-2013-page-2476.html.

Vacancy at New Writing North: Marketing and Communications Manager

(Maternity cover from August 2013 for up to one year)

Deadline: Friday 21st June 2013

New Writing North are looking to recruit a temporary member of staff to cover a period of maternity leave. The marketing and communications manager performs a key role within New Writing North, encompassing the devising and delivery of both corporate objectives and project-related marketing and PR. The post reports to the chief executive and the postholder will work across the organisation with other senior staff and programme managers and with external stakeholders and project partners.

For full details and to apply, see www.newwritingnorth.com/about-marketing-and-communications-manager-vacancy-page-2456.html

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Call for submissions: Voicewalks

The Durham Book Festival team at New Writing North is working with the Hearing the Voice project at Durham University on a special series of events which will take place during this year’s festival. As part of the project, they’d like to invite writers of all levels to contribute to a pamphlet of poetry, prose and non-fiction in English about hearing voices when walking in the city. In addition to a specially-commissioned piece by Iain Sinclair, StepAway magazine will publish a special issue of a collection of walking narratives by both voice-hearers and writers who creatively imagine hearing voices.

Submissions can be as long as a 1,000-word essay or story, or as short as a 17-syllable haiku. Submissions can be named or anonymous, as the writers wish. 

Deadline: 1st August 2013. 

For full details and to apply, see http://hearingthevoice.org.

Wanted! Young people with strong opinions

Are you a young person with strong views about the state of the world? Are you worried about getting a job, angry about tuition fees or have something to say about the effects of cuts on your local area? New Writing North want to know what you think!
In the coming months, writer Jake Campbell will be running a series of free writing workshops for young people (14+) which will give you a chance to make your voice heard about the issues that are important to you. Whether you’re a keen writer or just want to try something new, this is a chance to get your ideas and opinions down on paper and be included in an “Uncertain Times” anthology.
Workshops are running in South Shields and Newcastle and you can get all the details here:

South Shields
Thursday 24th January and Thursday 31st January 2013, 5-7pm The Cave, Captains Row,  Tyne Dock,  South Shields,  Tyne & Wear, NE33 5AS.
If you would like to come to the South Shields workshops, please email or phone 0191 427 8193.
Newcastle
Wednesday 6th March and Wednesday 13th March 2013, 5-7pm New Writing North, 3 Ellison Place, Ellison Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST.
If you would like to come to the Newcastle workshops, please email or phone 0191 204 8852.
For more information on the project, you might like to follow Jake’s blog.
The “Uncertain Times” writing workshops are part of Jake Campbell’s Changemakers residency with New Writing North. 

Source: www.newwritingnorth.com

Writing workshop at Durham Book Festival: 2 for 1 tickets for New Writing North subscribers

New Writing North are delighted to be working with the Northern Spirit team, who are putting together a production next spring in venues across the north of England, to commission writers to reflect on what it means to be a northerner today.

Fed up with the traditional depiction of the North as being grim, industrial and depressed, director Chris Meads and the team decided to bring together writers, artists, photographers and digital media specialists to create a blog – A Wondrous Space – which would dispel this dated image of northern England. The contributors have written about Manchester, Sheffield, Tyne and Wear and Liverpool.

The blog entries will help inform a new production called A Wondrous Place, which will tour the North in the spring.

You can be part of the production. Come along on Monday 29th October to the Gala Theatre in Durham at 2pm, and take part in the writing workshop which will help create the final piece.

This event is especially relevant to writers working in the North, and as such, if you quote “New Writing North” when you book by phone (0191 332 4041) you can get 2 for 1 tickets to the workshop.

Writers will get the following out of the workshop:

You’ll get to take away the start of six stories about characters in a re-imagined North which you’ll have helped write during the session
You’ll learn about how digital technology and blogging can be a tool for writers, with input from the bloggers who’ve already contributed to A Wondrous Space
You’ll get an insight into how the Northern Spirit team is using digital technology to enhance collaborative theatre-making processes. This will be illustrated practically within the workshop where you’ll get a real sense of how your contribution will help shape the piece

You can book your 2 for 1 tickets by calling the Gala box office on 0191 332 4041 and quoting “New Writing North”.

For more information, see www.durhambookfestival.com

Source: Press Release

Young Writers Wanted for Journal Opportunity

Are you a young writer, 15-19, would you like to see your work in print in The Journal newspaper? If so, you might be interested in this fantastic opportunity from New Writing North and Juice Festival.

To tie in with one of the themes in this year's Juice Festival, the organisers are looking for a story on the theme of DRAGONS. So whether you’re inspired by knights of the round table and damsels in distress, or would like to take a rather more metaphorical angle on the theme, they can’t wait to read your work. Your story must be between 1,750-2,000 words long and have a 'dragon' theme. Stories should be sent as an attachment to laura@newwritingnorth.com, accompanied by a 50-word biography. The deadline for entries is Friday 12th October 2012.

Good Luck!

Contribute to new Tyneside Twitter novel

New media artists and writers Jon Winet and Peter Likarish are busy in pre-production on Tyneside Novel, a Twitter-based fiction work to be created over a three-day period from 13th-15th June by a soon-to-be-formed community of writers. The US-based duo will travel to Newcastle to work on site at Culture Lab and hope to involve local writers in the project. Inspired by Mike Hodge’s 1971 film Get Carter, Tyneside Novel will launch with characters travelling by train from Edinburgh to Newcastle. As in the film, Newcastle's compelling social and physical cityscapes will play starring roles.

Follow @NewWritingNorth on Twitter if you’d like to be involved and for additional information, including information on meet-ups in advance of the project launch, gathering spots that will allow writers to work together during the project, and a website that will allow readers and writers to track Tyneside Novel's progress. Online publication of the completed work is expected by the end of the year.

New prize announced in memory of Gordon Burn

The Gordon Burn Prize will run each year in partnership with the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North and Faber and Faber

Gordon Burn was a writer for whom no subject or character was beyond fictionalising. Peter Sutcliffe, Alma Cogan, Duncan Edwards, George Best and Bobby Charlton, Damien Hirst, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, and even Gordon Burn himself: Burn loved to take characters already burnished in the celebrity spotlight and explore the darkness beneath. Sometimes he would choose fiction to do this, as in his Whitbread Prize-winning debut Alma Cogan; other times – and sometimes within the same book – his methods and intentions were more ambiguous. The reader begins to question the very nature of what he is reading. Fiction? Non-fiction? Faction?

The Gordon Burn Prize seeks to reward a published title (fiction or non-fiction) written in the English language, which in the opinion of the judges most successfully represents the spirit and sensibility of Gordon’s literary methods: novels which dare to enter history and interrogate the past; writers of non-fiction brave enough to recast characters and historical events to create a new and vivid reality. Literature which challenges perceived notions of genre and makes us think again about just what it is that we are reading.

The judges for the 2013 prize are novelist David Peace, journalist Deborah Orr, and novelist and broadcaster Mark Lawson.

A shortlist of no more than ten books will be announced in February 2013 and the winner of The Gordon Burn Prize will be announced at an awards ceremony in Newcastle upon Tyne in April 2013. The winning writer will receive a cheque for £5,000 and be offered the opportunity to undertake a writing retreat of up to three months at Gordon Burn’s cottage in Northumberland.
 

“I am extremely pleased that this prize is being set up in Gordon Burn’s name, with the support of New Writing North and Faber. Gordon would have been thrilled as he loved prizes, and was very anxious that this sort of work should receive a wider audience. The fact that it will be awarded in Newcastle is particularly appropriate, as he was born and brought up there, and retained a strong connection and love for the city throughout his life.”
Carol Gorner, wife of Gordon Burn and part of the Gordon Burn Trust

“As each year passes, the world of literature misses Gordon’s genius more and more. But the relevance of his books and his unique sensibility only gathers momentum. A prize in Gordon’s name, and with respect to his radical perspective and style will, I hope, continue to draw attention to this.”
Lee Brackstone, publishing director at Faber and Faber

“Gordon Burn was one of the most exciting writers to have emerged from the North East’s dynamic literary scene. This fantastic new prize will create a legacy for his work and keep interest alive in his novels and non-fiction. It was always a very stimulating experience to work with Gordon and I’m delighted to be supporting the prize and we are all looking forward to hosting the awards event in Newcastle next spring.”
Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North

For full terms and conditions as well as submission guidelines, go to www.newwritingnorth.com.

See www.gordonburntrust.com for further details on The Gordon Burn Prize as well as information on Gordon’s work.