New Writing North’s renewed partnership to support aspiring writers

National World - LocalTV

New Writing North’s renewed partnership with Channel 4 will see more talented writers from the North be supported into writing for TV. The partnership includes bursaries, bespoke programmes of talent development, screen industry insight, networking and mentoring.

Transcript

00:00We're an arts organisation based in Newcastle and we are responsible for developing writing

00:05and reading across the North. That involves us identifying and developing the most interesting

00:11writers emerging and introducing them to career making opportunities, whether that's in TV,

00:17film, publishing, poetry, etc. And we also do quite a lot of work engaging people,

00:24including young people, in the idea of writing and reading and supporting them,

00:30perhaps introducing them to the ideas of careers which involve writing and things like that.

00:34We also programme and produce a number of literature events including Durham Book Festival.

00:40We have been working with Channel 4 really well for about 10 years actually.

00:45We run every year the Northern Writers Awards and that is our opportunity to identify the most

00:52interesting emerging writers coming from the North, whether that's, as I say, in publishing

00:56or poetry or non-fiction. And also we've run a Writing for Television Award which has been

01:03supported by Channel 4 all this time. That means that two writers from the North get an opportunity

01:09to develop their original ideas with production companies and some of those writers have gone on

01:16to make television careers, so they're writing for TV series as we speak. So that's really been

01:22successful and so this new programme will enable us to expand those awards, so there'll be four

01:29awards available to writers across the North, but also to do a lot more development work,

01:35so going into communities and introducing the idea of writing for TV to people, training programmes,

01:43as well as programmes which really do identify the most promising writers and really support

01:48them through a development process so that they can get their work to be pitched to

01:54production companies with a view to it going on to our television screens.

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