A cohort of Teesdale Writers attended New Writing North’s Tees Valley Writing Conference this weekend, at Darlington’s Hullabaloo. We took part in a selection of workshops, which included life writing, writing speculative fiction, writing in dialect, and insightful Q&As with agents and publishers. Although there was a lot to glean from the workshops, the highlights were the keynote speakers: in the morning, a rich conversation between Pat and Anna Barker, talking through Anna’s part-memoir, part-biography of her mother, and in the afternoon, an interview with Middlesbrough novelist Paddy Crewe, discussing his journey to publication. It was also a great opportunity to meet other local writers and to put faces to names we would otherwise only cross online.
It feels like an exciting time for NWN, who spoke of the expansion of opportunities for Tees Valley writers as NWN partners with The Engine Room, a major investment into creative arts in the North. This has also included a series of poetry workshops across the region with poet and creative practitioner, Katherine Goda, including at Barnard Castle’s TCR Hub. I took part in the workshop at Collected Books in Durham, and, like the workshops at the Writer’s Conference, I found them inclusive and supportive. NWN’s website is regularly updated with events, initiatives and resources, and is one I follow closely – I’m looking forward to seeing what further opportunities unfold there.