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.
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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.