The end of March 2010 sees Writing West Midlands completing its first quarter of a year. What have we done and what have we achieved? Readers of our website will know that our work is loosely divided into Learn, Develop, Events, Festivals and Region and that we are keen to develop writers, grow audiences/readers, make new writing and promote the West Midlands as a creative writing region. Here’s how we have got on…

A huge amount of energy has gone into work connected to our Learn programme. This has included working with ten schools on our standard Write On programme (a total of fifty school visits by professional writers), a special programme for clusters of schools in the Black Coutnry (working twelve schools delivering over twenty four sessions) and two Original Writing Days for a cluster of schools in the Nechells area of Birmingham. We have also done some excellent work with the OCR Examination Board to explore ways in which young people can engage with contemporary and classic poetry. We launched two young people’s writing groups which meet monthly and are both well subscribed. And finally, we were involved in the National Lottery Showcase in Birmingham, sharing some new writing from children in Birmingham.

Our Events programme included a successful launch of Clare Morrall’s latest novel, The Man Who Disappeared, and a fully subscribed writing workshop with Roz Goddard. We are also planning a launch for Christine Coleman’s new novel on 27th April. Most of our events energy has gone into programming and announcing our Spring Thing – Festival in a Day, featuring a wonderful range of writers, and culminating in a performance from the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. And at the same time we are programming the October Birmingham Book Festival and already have a very exciting line-up. We also supported an event managed by the Drum.

Our Develop work included a training day for writers working in schools and arranging a sub-regional networking afternoon in Newcastle under Lyme (date to be confirmed). We have also begun to programme our Writer Networking Conference, which is likley to be on Saturday 20th November. And we have got to the first stage of our Ears Wide Open commission programme, having commissioned two writers to produce pieces of work.

To add to this we have been making links with other regional and national organisations, includign National Poetry Day (I serve on their steering group), The Arvon Foundation, and Sampad. We attended and presented at the Writing Industries Conference in Loughorough, attended an MLA training session on the Cultural Offer for Families and convened a meeting of the National Network of Writers in Schools Project Managers in Liverpool. We have been successful in our application to Birmingham City Council’s fund for independent Festivals and have submitted several other applications to grant giving trusts.

Our work with individual writers continues. We have run six individual consultancy sessions with writers, looking at their work and ambitions and offering advice and guidance. We have also worked with a number of schools to suggest writers they might work with and have offered support to some Creative Partnerships colleagues. Finally, our website has been re-vamped; it works beter and it has a more sophisticated mechanism for gathering contacts.

This isn’t an exhaustive list but it covers the main areas of work. Our next quarter is focussing on our Festival work and on creating new ways of supporting writers, although I suspect it will end up involving every aspect of our work.