Coronavirus outbreak: a statement from New Writing North
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We’re sorry to let you know that we have decided to cancel or postpone all of New Writing North’s face-to-face activities until the end of April. This includes Read Regional library events, our Young Writers groups, Creative Writing for Teachers, work in schools and all of our one-off events including Crime Story and the Climate Reading Group. If you have bought tickets or signed up for any of these activities, we or our venue partners will be in touch. We will be reviewing events from May onwards as the picture becomes clearer and in accordance with government advice.
Although we are all disappointed that this is the outcome, we also feel sure it is necessary and the best way we can support our audiences, participants, freelancers and staff to stay safe.
We have around 30 freelance writers and facilitators who will be affected by these cancellations and we will be honouring their contracts.
We are planning to work with our freelancers to see whether we can offer some of our creative writing work online, both to support schools if they need to close, and to support all of us who suddenly find ourselves at home much more often. We’d really like to translate the healing power of reading and writing to our little corner of the internet and to make this period a bit less stressful for as many people as possible. We hope to work out the logistics of digital delivery this week and hope you will join in if you would like to – no experience of writing is necessary and everyone is welcome.
For the foreseeable future our other work behind the scenes will continue as normally as possible. If you have an award entry or application in with us, we are still aiming to keep to our original timelines. If you are thinking of applying for one of our schemes which is currently open, please do so. If we have commissioned work from you, we are excited to read it!
In line with government advice, we’re working from home for the next couple of weeks, so you won’t be able to reach us on our office phone. Get in touch by emailing [email protected] or sending us a message on Twitter or Facebook.
Take care,
All at NWN