Special Guest Northern Highlight - Claire Malcolm, New Writing North

Special Guest Northern Highlight

Photo credit: Topher McGrillis

Claire Malcolm

 How has NWN changed over the last 20+ years?

Although NWN’s scale of ambition and what it’s possible for us to achieve has grown a great deal since 1996 the mission of the organisation which is about finding and developing talented writers and involving people in the North with great writing holds true. We’re just able to do this on a different scale now with the support of bigger partners, networks and ambassadors.

One of the things that is part of our history but that provides such rich support for us is the writers that we have helped along the way. It’s so gratifying and motivating to see the impact of our work with writers manifest in careers, books, prizes and in people finding new ways to live the lives that they want to through their writing. We have such a big group of NWN ‘alumni’ now and I always love catching up with writers and finding out what they are working on and how things are going for them.

Tell us about where you are in Newcastle.

I haven’t been into Newcastle since March 16th when we closed the office! So today I’m writing from my ‘new’ home office set-up in my bedroom in rural Gateshead. I miss our office in Newcastle and my colleagues so much. Usually, we are based in an office in the centre of Newcastle.

We are hosted by Northumbria University and work out of an elegant Georgian terrace on the edge of the campus with a lovely garden that the student allotment society run (and that we get to sit in!). Our offices are a bit messy, full of books and people. We share our corridor with Mslexia magazine so are used to chatting to them in the kitchen too.

What are your future plans for NWN?

We have many plans and are full of ideas for the future. We’re trying through this Covid moment to think more broadly about what role we might play as an organisation in the recovery of the city and of culture in our region.

We’re developing new areas of work around reading and wellbeing, continuing to commission new work, thinking how we develop the role of our Climate Writer in Residence.

In the immediate future we’re working on how we deliver Durham Book Festival as a digital event in October. We’re on a steep learning curve in terms of working out how we do this, learning lots about platforms and subtitling software as well as working out the creative side of the programme.

I’m excited that we’ll be commissioning a number of films and podcasts – both areas of work that we enjoy.

What for you is the 'spirit of the North'?

I grew up in the North and have worked and lived here in Yorkshire and the North East the whole of my life. For me the North is about a co-operative rather than competitive spirit, a lack of pretention in culture and hierarchy and really strong self-depreciating humour! Maybe I’m just describing myself there.

There’s also something about the language here that continues to enthral me, how our dialects and accents and plain speech feed into our literary culture. Part of the spirit of the North is also the resilience and the fight for equality and equity when it comes to national resources and investment – it’s still so unequal. The spirit is that we keep on keeping on with the argument.

Here on the North East coast the spirit is also about being on the edge of the country and looking out to a different horizon that feels closer than the South East of England.

Who for you are the great Northern writers?

They are legion. Catherine Cookson (I grew up reading her books when I was far too young), Alan Bennett, Pat Barker, Tony Harrison, Simon Armitage, Benjamin Myers, David Almond, Jacob Polley, Sally Wainwright and Kay Mellor.

What excites me more really is the new generations of writers that follow in the footsteps of these giants and how their work continues to build this picture of the North for all of us.

You were once described as “Muhammad Ali of the North East arts circuit”! What are the advantages to being based in the North?

For me the North remains interesting and full of potential. There is still so much that can be done, so many ways that I feel our work can contribute to communities and cultural development. I think that quote is perhaps more about resilience and determination to make things happen rather than brute force and maybe also about NWN hitting above our weight.

The clear advantages about being here is the diversity of experiences, the space, the countryside close at hand, the sea, proximity to Scotland and their progressive politics, the cost of accommodation and the length (or not) of the daily commute.

I also think for people who run cultural organisations there is also a strength in having to engage with different audiences and to involve people in culture. When you’re in London the market of people to buy and engage with your cultural output is easy to find, here there can be more of a challenge so you have to work out how to take people with you – or even better how to co-create with them.

What would you like to see from children's publishing in the North?

I like books that have a strong sense of place and which use place to grow the specificity of the story. When you look at a writer like David Almond whose work is inspired by the places he grew up and lives but then takes these into completely magical places – that excites me, and I’d love to see more of that.

The North can be a wild and exciting landscape and it’s built on a specific history and experiences. I’d like to see those in books. I don’t think we see enough working-class settings in stories that children can relate to and look forward to seeing more of that coming through too.

I also think that there is a real gap for adoption and fostering/care narratives in books for children. Year on year the number of young people having those experiences grows but culturally we don’t explore it very well.

Find out more about New Writing North at:

https://newwritingnorth.com/

Twitter @NewWritingNorth

Instagram nwnnewwritingnorth