Without the mentoring, workshops and bursary, I would be an aspiring, but still unpublished writer.
We’ve spent three decades nurturing writers, championing unheard voices and making literature accessible to all.
In just the past five years, we’ve:
- Reached an audience of 4+ million people
- Engaged with just shy of 10,000 young people
- Paid 750+ artists to create work for or with us, over half (57%) of which were Black, Asian and Global Majority
- Worked with 400+ cultural and community organisations
- Supported writers and creative practitioners with funding and grant applications, to the tune of over £1 million
All with a team that usually includes two full-time and four part-time members of staff, working from a small office at the Albany, Deptford.
Tom MacAndrew and Ruth Harrison have been in my corner for coming up to 8 years, giving me advice and supporting all the work that I do, which was a major help when I was asked to be Croydon’s first Poet Laureate. So much of the woman I have become is linked to them.
Back in 2017 I wrote a short piece called ‘The Year Dot’ which was highly-commended in the Spread the Word Life Writing prize. It’s really no exaggeration to say that was the beginning of my writing career. It was from that showcase event that I came to work with my brilliant agent. It was that piece that grew into my memoir Small. The whole experience gave me the confidence I needed to just take the risk and try.
