Latest news with #NewWritingNorth
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
British culture is excluding the majority. Labour is to blame
The arts have a class problem. I can't believe I'm writing this in 2025, but it's true – in fact, the situation is worse than ever. Class is on my mind thanks to the news that New Writing North, a charity based in Newcastle, has launched an initiative called The Bee. Backed by Michael Sheen, The Bee will include a literary magazine, a podcast and an outreach programme in an attempt to increase working-class representation. They'll even offer an 'alternative canon' of fiction that includes New Grub Street by George Gissing and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. New Writing North is an important organisation, and the involvement of Sheen will hopefully add star wattage to a serious crisis. The Sutton Trust, which monitors social mobility in the UK, reported in 2014 that only 12 per cent of those who worked in publishing came from working-class backgrounds; the proportion of middle-class workers has risen steadily since. I fear that as advances for novels and publishing salaries continue to stagnate, talented youngsters will choose better-paid and more secure professions such as law or accountancy. We're too easily fooled by the odd high-profile success. Much was made, for instance, and quite rightly, of Douglas Stuart's assured 2020 debut novel Shuggie Bain which drew on his impoverished and dysfunctional Scottish childhood. But Stuart wasn't a young voice who'd been financially cushioned – he was a working professional in his mid-forties, a boy who'd grown up poor in the 1980s and through talent and determination forged a successful career in the New York fashion world. It isn't just books. Careers in the arts are, in generally, badly paid, and any working-class youngster hoping for a career in theatre, opera or visual art (whether as an artist or behind the scenes) will struggle to make a living. Even pop, once seen as the preserve of the working-class young, feels as if it's becoming increasingly bourgeois. Charli XCX, Mumford and Sons, The Last Dinner Party – so many leading musicians can boast of a pukka education. This has been the case for a couple of decades now – but once upon a time it was just Joe Strummer and the majority of Genesis. The depressing thing about all of this is that we have gone backwards. Social mobility, in truth, ended at some point in the 1970s. Blame the Labour Party: under their education secretary Anthony Crosland, they scrapped a grammar-school system that had worked perfectly well for 40 years and thus – surprisingly for a bunch of socialists – blocked poor children's path to a brighter future. Tracey Emin proved that a non-Establishment voice still had the power to make a mark on the cultural landscape - Lion Television Up to this point, the grammar had been the great social leveller. It ensured that British artistic talent was diverse: we had actors such as Eileen Atkins, artists such as David Hockney, and authors such as David Storey and Shelagh Delaney. Yes, as Britain boomed in the years that followed, the less privileged could still gain a foothold and make a decent living – an artist such as Tracey Emin proved that a non-Establishment voice still had the power to make a mark on the cultural landscape. And, superficially at least, efforts have been made to make the arts more diverse. Most big organisations now have outreach programmes in a bid to make culture less posh. But while this is laudable, granting someone access to culture isn't the same as helping them to pursue a career in it. In talking about this problem, we say 'working class' as a catch-all; but, in truth, it's no longer only working-class Britons who are being shut out from culture. If you're from a bog-standard middle-class family with a household salary of £35,000 – pretty much the national average – it's unlikely that you'll be able to afford the luxury of trying to write that novel or screenplay. There's a reason you don't hear of many playwrights who are the children of nurses or primary-school teachers. And experience bears this out: the vast majority of professionals I encounter in the arts are well-to-do. Time and again, I meet people with lovely, creative jobs and wonder: 'How on earth can you afford to live in West Hampstead?' And then the penny drops. English actress Eileen Atkins in 1966 - Evening Standard/If Labour were to blame for essentially destroying social mobility 50 years ago, then they are hardly making amends under Keir Starmer. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister did address the 'posh problem' in the arts when he acknowledged that almost half of British cultural stars nominated for an award over the past decade were privately educated. He also recognised that the UK creative industries are worth £1.25 billion to the economy, and pledged to make the arts more accessible. These are useful facts, but there has to be more than words. The problem is that nobody is joining up the dots here. The promised access will not necessarily materialise into any sort of career opportunities for those from a poorer background. Unless arts organisations or publishers can start to make starting salaries more attractive, culture will continue to be ruled by an elite minority. And the issue isn't simply one of money: introducing a new generation of youngsters from all backgrounds to art and literature will have benefits to them, and in due course, to older Britons too (in the culture they create). To keep pressing for this has never seemed more important, especially in a country where the arts in education, under the last Conservative government, were denuded. I hope The Bee, and projects like it, can succeed. Otherwise, effecting real change, and creating a meritocracy that cuts across class barriers in the way that it did until half a century ago, will forever feel like an impossible dream. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
British culture is excluding the majority. Labour is to blame
The arts have a class problem. I can't believe I'm writing this in 2025, but it's true – in fact, the situation is worse than ever. Class is on my mind thanks to the news that New Writing North, a charity based in Newcastle, has launched an initiative called The Bee. Backed by Michael Sheen, The Bee will include a literary magazine, a podcast and an outreach programme in an attempt to increase working-class representation. They'll even offer an 'alternative canon' of fiction that includes New Grub Street by George Gissing and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. New Writing North is an important organisation, and the involvement of Sheen will hopefully add star wattage to a serious crisis. The Sutton Trust, which monitors social mobility in the UK, reported in 2014 that only 12 per cent of those who worked in publishing came from working-class backgrounds; the proportion of middle-class workers has risen steadily since. I fear that as advances for novels and publishing salaries continue to stagnate, talented youngsters will choose better-paid and more secure professions such as law or accountancy. We're too easily fooled by the odd high-profile success. Much was made, for instance, and quite rightly, of Douglas Stuart's assured 2020 debut novel Shuggie Bain which drew on his impoverished and dysfunctional Scottish childhood. But Stuart wasn't a young voice who'd been financially cushioned – he was a working professional in his mid-forties, a boy who'd grown up poor in the 1980s and through talent and determination forged a successful career in the New York fashion world. It isn't just books. Careers in the arts are, in generally, badly paid, and any working-class youngster hoping for a career in theatre, opera or visual art (whether as an artist or behind the scenes) will struggle to make a living. Even pop, once seen as the preserve of the working-class young, feels as if it's becoming increasingly bourgeois. Charli XCX, Mumford and Sons, The Last Dinner Party – so many leading musicians can boast of a pukka education. This has been the case for a couple of decades now – but once upon a time it was just Joe Strummer and the majority of Genesis. The depressing thing about all of this is that we have gone backwards. Social mobility, in truth, ended at some point in the 1970s. Blame the Labour Party: under their education secretary Anthony Crosland, they scrapped a grammar-school system that had worked perfectly well for 40 years and thus – surprisingly for a bunch of socialists – blocked poor children's path to a brighter future. Up to this point, the grammar had been the great social leveller. It ensured that British artistic talent was diverse: we had actors such as Eileen Atkins, artists such as David Hockney, and authors such as David Storey and Shelagh Delaney. Yes, as Britain boomed in the years that followed, the less privileged could still gain a foothold and make a decent living – an artist such as Tracey Emin proved that a non-Establishment voice still had the power to make a mark on the cultural landscape. And, superficially at least, efforts have been made to make the arts more diverse. Most big organisations now have outreach programmes in a bid to make culture less posh. But while this is laudable, granting someone access to culture isn't the same as helping them to pursue a career in it. In talking about this problem, we say 'working class' as a catch-all; but, in truth, it's no longer only working-class Britons who are being shut out from culture. If you're from a bog-standard middle-class family with a household salary of £35,000 – pretty much the national average – it's unlikely that you'll be able to afford the luxury of trying to write that novel or screenplay. There's a reason you don't hear of many playwrights who are the children of nurses or primary-school teachers. And experience bears this out: the vast majority of professionals I encounter in the arts are well-to-do. Time and again, I meet people with lovely, creative jobs and wonder: 'How on earth can you afford to live in West Hampstead?' And then the penny drops. If Labour were to blame for essentially destroying social mobility 50 years ago, then they are hardly making amends under Keir Starmer. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister did address the 'posh problem' in the arts when he acknowledged that almost half of British cultural stars nominated for an award over the past decade were privately educated. He also recognised that the UK creative industries are worth £1.25 billion to the economy, and pledged to make the arts more accessible. These are useful facts, but there has to be more than words. The problem is that nobody is joining up the dots here. The promised access will not necessarily materialise into any sort of career opportunities for those from a poorer background. Unless arts organisations or publishers can start to make starting salaries more attractive, culture will continue to be ruled by an elite minority. And the issue isn't simply one of money: introducing a new generation of youngsters from all backgrounds to art and literature will have benefits to them, and in due course, to older Britons too (in the culture they create). To keep pressing for this has never seemed more important, especially in a country where the arts in education, under the last Conservative government, were denuded. I hope The Bee, and projects like it, can succeed. Otherwise, effecting real change, and creating a meritocracy that cuts across class barriers in the way that it did until half a century ago, will forever feel like an impossible dream.
BBC News
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Magazine to boost working class writing launched in Newcastle
Magazine launched to promote working class writers A new writing platform has been launched to promote working class writers and tackle the publishing industry's "class crisis". The Bee will consist of a website, literary magazine, podcast and outreach programme to support the development of working class writers. It has been produced by Newcastle-based charity New Writing North and is part of the A Writing Chance programme, which is co-founded by Northumbria University, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and actor Michael Sheen. New Writing North CEO Claire Malcolm said: "Talent is classless. Opportunity, however, is class-bound. The Bee is an urgent response to that."
The Guardian
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
UK-wide initiative launched to tackle marginalisation of working-class writers
Writing and publishing in the UK is in crisis, with a growing marginalisation of working-class people whose stories and experiences are not being heard, the backers of a new literary magazine and platform have argued. The Early May bank holiday has been chosen for the launch of The Bee, a UK-wide initiative that will include a website, literary magazine, podcast and outreach programme. Supported by the actor Michael Sheen and led by the Newcastle-based charity New Writing North, The Bee is a response to what they see as the 'class crisis in the UK writing industries'. The magazine will be edited by Richard Benson, who edited The Face in the 1990s. He said it was well known the creative industries were 'massively skewed' in terms of representation, but writing and publishing were 'even more skewed'. 'It is not in a good place,' he said. 'Why do we accept that it's normal to have good working-class representation in music, but you wouldn't have that in publishing? There's no real reason why that should be the case. 'All the indicators point to it getting worse. If you think back to the 60s and 70s, there was more working-class representation and people were getting their voices heard. You were seeing that showing up in the kind of books, films, television that was made.' Backers of The Bee say that 'the marginalisation of working-class writers' is increasing. They say that in 2014, 43% of people in publishing came from middle-class backgrounds and only 12% from working class. In 2019 the number of people who came from the middle class had risen to 60%. Benson said there were issues of justice and fairness, but also common sense. 'Much of the important writing being done today and so many of the best-loved stories come from ordinary working people,' he said. 'So often it's stories from the working classes that express what is really happening in the world.' One strand of the initiative will be a podcast that will try to create 'an alternative canon of classics', with guest writers and academics discussing whether a book deserves a place on the virtual shelves of 'the working-class library'. Three are being released on Monday, with Louise Doughty discussing Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel; Craig McLean discussing Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting; and Simon James, a professor of English literature at Durham University, discussing George Gissing's 1891 novel New Grub Street. Benson accepted that class has always been hard to define precisely and can mean different things to different people. But he said: 'What is clear is that in 2025 your background can still affect your life chances and career prospects.' Claire Malcolm, the chief executive of New Writing North, said there had been success stories from a number of initiatives on the problem, but research showed 'the class crisis continues to grow'. She said that, according to Sutton Trust research, just 10% of authors and writers are from working-class backgrounds and 44% of newspaper columnists attended a private school. 'There's been so much debate about class in the creative industries but nothing has changed,' she said. 'Things are actually getting worse and inequality more entrenched, hence the need to make our own reality.' Malcolm added: 'Talent is classless. Opportunity, however, is class-bound. The Bee is an urgent response to that.' The first print magazine will be published in the autumn and will feature writing on contemporary life and culture by working-class writers. The Beehive, an online space providing support, community and development opportunities for new and emerging working-class writers, will launch in the summer. The Bee is an extension of A Writing Chance, a scheme for working-class writers founded by Michael Sheen, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Northumbria University. It is supported by the publisher Faber.
The Guardian
06-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Jenni Fagan's ‘visceral' memoir of growing up in care wins Gordon Burn prize
A memoir about growing up in care has won this year's Gordon Burn prize. Jenni Fagan was revealed as the winner of the £10,000 award for her book Ootlin at a ceremony in Newcastle on Thursday evening. Fagan described the win as a 'huge honour'. The prize will allow Ootlin to 'begin to reach a far wider audience', which is 'vital so this book can begin to influence policymakers', she said. 'It is my greatest hope that Ootlin is used to help stop other children in the care system falling through all safety nets as I did repeatedly.' By the age of seven, Fagan had lived in 14 different homes and had her name changed multiple times. 'There are a lot of kids out there being told they are less than everyone else. They are made unsafe by that story alone,' writes Fagan in the book, extracted for the Guardian. 'The government have a modern care system built on systems that are no longer fit for purpose,' she said after her win. 'It is time to change the story! We must see all children in the UK offered so much more. Safety, warmth, care, a home, food, an education and people who believe in them should be the very least of it.' Ootlin was also recently longlisted for the Women's prize for nonfiction. Along with the memoir, Fagan has written four novels – The Panopticon, The Sunlight Pilgrims, Hex and Luckenbooth, the latter shortlisted for the Gordon Burn prize in 2021 – as well as several poetry collections. 'Ootlin is a story about a girl who found her only true home in books, who via those stories began to imagine a place where she might truly belong,' said Fagan. Ootlin 'has haunted me since I read it, and it proudly moved me as both a work of art and a visceral contribution to an urgent and necessary debate about our care system and whether it is fit for purpose', said Claire Malcolm, the CEO of New Writing North and co-founder of the prize. The Gordon Burn prize celebrates writing that has an unconventional perspective, style or subject matter. Founded in 2012 by New Writing North, Faber & Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust, it is named after the English writer known for experimental works who died in 2009. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion Shortlisted alongside Fagan for this year's prize were Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel, Mrs Jekyll by Emma Glass, Poor Artists by Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad (The White Pube), Only Here, Only Now by Tom Newlands, and The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell by Lucia Osborne-Crowley. The judging panel for this year's prize comprised the writers Terri White, Carl Anka, Angela Hui, Sarah Phelps and David Whitehouse. The award is open to all writers of any nationality for work written in English and published in the UK the previous year. 'All of the books on the shortlist deserve recognition, but Jenni Fagan's Ootlin is a singular achievement,' said Whitehouse. 'Everything about it – the language, the rhythm, the approach, the subject, the author – conspires to make a beautiful, vital, difficult, human piece of art.' Past winners include Benjamin Myers, Peter Pomerantsev, Hanif Abdurraqib and Preti Taneja. Last year, Kathryn Scanlan won for her novel Kick the Latch.
