New Writing North Creative Associates

We launched the Creative Associates programme in March 2022 to appoint writers and creatives to our staff team at a time of growth and development for NWN. Creative Associates bring fresh perspectives to the organisation, while being supported to develop their own creative projects and artistic practice. As this exciting area of work has developed, we’ve been able to make both freelance and staff opportunities.
Our first Creative Associates appointed in 2022 are supported with funding from Arts Council England’s National Lottery project funding. From 2023, this programme forms part of our Writing and Publishing Skills Hub and new appointments are supported with funding from North East Combined Authority.
Meet our Creative Associates 2024-25
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Carina Rodney
Carina is a writer based in North Shields whose work includes audio, theatre and screen productions. Her theatre work has toured locally and nationally, and her audio scripts have been produced by BBC Radio 4 and Audible, including the multi-cast series Hell Cats (2020) and Hell Cats 2, Stand and Deliver. Her screenplay, The Change, received BFI Early Development Funding, and her TV feature Living Next to Danger was produced in 2023 for a US audience. She has two original drama series currently in development, both set in the North East. Carina is represented by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.
As a Creative Associate, Carina will develop her novel ‘Abigail’ which explores what happened to Abigail Williams after the Salem witch trials collapsed. Inspired by historical records, Abigail reimagines the story of one of the ‘Afflicted ‘ and main witnesses in the Salem witch trials, made famous in The Crucible. Abigail, a young woman, orphaned and indebted, found autonomy, excitement and influence through her exploitation of fear and superstition during the hysteria of the Salem witch trials. Though the subject of witchcraft runs throughout her story, whether we believe in magic is unimportant; the important thing is that Abigail believes it, and she has the power to make others believe it as well.
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Chloe Daykin
Chloe Daykin is a children’s author, artist and occasional playwright living up in Northumberland.
She started out as an author by winning an ARHC studentship to study the MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle University and then a brilliant Northern Writers Award for her debut novel Fish Boy – which went on to be part of a bidding war and was published by Faber & Faber in 2017 to critical acclaim.
Chloe won the inaugural Julia Darling Fellowship to research her second novel The Boy Who Hit Play, travelling around Norway and its beautiful islands, then journeyed across Peru thanks to the fantastic support of the Arts Council England writing her third novel, Fire Girl Forest Boy, which won the Edward Stanford Children’s Travel Book of the Year.
Chloe’s written plays with The Letter Room, Unfolding Theatre, Live Theatre, Northern Stage & The Traverse Edinburgh and is a tutor for the Faber Academy Newcastle.
For her residency, Chloe will be travelling to Sardinia to research & write Lemons, a literary & magical children’s novel – about friendship, Dave Grohl and finding the wonder in the every day – inspired by The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson & Devotions by Mary Oliver and by the wild & intoxicatingly beautiful landscape of Sardinia.
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Claire Dupree
Claire Dupree is the founder and editor of North East-based alternative music and culture magazine NARC., a trusted source of information and entertainment which shines a light on the vibrant cultural make-up of the North East.
NARC. celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026, and plans to mark the occasion with the publication of their first book—The Alternative Guide to the North East—a comprehensive guidebook to the region’s alternative cultural scene.
The Alt. Guide is for anyone who wants to dig a little deeper and go beyond the mainstream; whether they live in the region or are just visiting, the book will enable readers to find the hidden gems that lie far off the beaten track, learn local secrets and get insider knowledge on how and where to engage with music, art, comedy, film, theatre and more, and uncover the stories, people and places that make the North East such a unique and exciting place to live and visit.
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Samantha Neale
Samantha Neale an actor, writer and parent of twins from Newcastle upon Tyne. She has many years of experience in the creative arts sector including 15 years of professional acting experience on stage and screen. She is developing her skills as a writer with the goal of becoming a professional screenwriter for film and television.
Her plays have been produced professionally at Live Theatre, Alphabetti Theatre and The Exchange in Newcastle. Her debut short play Elliot was nominated for the Emerge Creative Writing Prize in 2018. In 2020, she won the New Writing North Channel 4 Writing for Television Award to develop a pilot script with Bonafide Productions. In 2021, she was chosen to participate in the BBC Writers’ Room – North East Voices scheme. In 2022, Bonafide productions and Channel 4 commissioned the development of her pilot script into a 6-part original drama series. She is currently working with Eight Zero Three Media to adapt crime novel Funicular by T F Lince into a 4-part drama series.
She plans to use her time as Screenwriter in Residence at Tyneside Cinema to utilise all the cinema has to offer including their extensive archive to develop and write her first feature film. Currently titled Baby Boy, her film will explore the many complexities, contradictions, highs and lows of parenthood through her love of genre movies. She will plan activities to connect with other caregivers and creatives in the region from working class backgrounds who share her passion for cinema with a slice of gore, silliness and violence (pretend of course!). -
Susannah Ronnie
Susannah Ronnie has a research-led creative practice focused on the fictionalising of history across periods as varied as the Stone Age, seventeenth century, 1800s and WWII. Her poems have been published in magazines including Poetry Review, and in her pamphlet Digging Up the Dead (Red Squirrel Press, 2014). Susannah has previously been commissioned by Queen’s Hall Arts, Hexham to write a play set in the Mesolithic and a short play inspired by the same period, which was professionally produced by Live Theatre for Your Voice, Your Future: North East in 2022. That same year, Susannah completed a practice-led Creative Writing PhD fully-funded by Northumbria University and the resulting poetry collection, with out end, which imagines and interrogates events surrounding the mutiny on Henry Hudson’s final voyage, won a Northern Writers’ Award. The mutiny is also explored in Susannah’s stage play Cloak & Dagger, which earnt her a longlisting for the Clive Richards Foundation Writer in Residency Bursary with Pentabus Theatre. In 2023, Susannah undertook a two-week residency at Alphabetti Theatre, culminating in a work-in-progress performance of Memory Box. As a Creative Associate Susannah will be developing her first historical novel.
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Yonatan Vinitsky
Yonatan Vinitsky is an artist and designer based in Newcastle upon Tyne, working on long-term collaborative visual projects. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College and an MA in Sculpture from The Royal College of Art. In 2020 he launched “The Workshop of Matt Montini,” a sustainable and affordable craft and design initiative. Currently, he is taking part in the Film Hub North (BFI) Script Lab.
His practice delves into themes of foreignness, identity, and belonging by juxtaposing historical, contemporary, and overlooked visual and textual sources. These elements are presented in various formats—exhibitions, printed matter, films, and performative lectures—as active agents of sensory interaction, highlighting the interplay between time, scale, the body, and space.
His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at venues such as South London Gallery, Pompidou Centre, Workplace Foundation, and Frieze New York. He has published a number of artist’s books, including: Real Life, onestar press (2019), The Middle of the World, Empire Books (2017), WIND – Five Variations on a Theme, Public School Editions (2014), and The Neglected Genie, The Estate of Matt Montini (2011).
As a Creative Associate, he will work on the project “Pictures Are Happening All The Time,” where he will question, object, and respond to the expropriation of photography from children’s books over the past three decades. He will collaborate with a local school in Newcastle on a year-long art programme titled “Looking as Preparedness,” which will explore how printed photographs can be utilized and presented to children to transform the way they experience, navigate, and frame their world. In parallel, he will develop a new children’s book that employs photography as its primary medium to address the current void in this genre.
“The Tyneside Cinema has played a significant role in my development as an artist over the years. I have been attending the cinema, often alone, since I was 14 years old. It is an honour and a privilege to be able to make work at the Tyneside as a writer and I’m so grateful for this amazing opportunity.” – Samantha Neale, Screenwriter in Residence at Tyneside Cinema
Meet our Creative Associates 2023-24
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Steph Lyttle
Steph is a facilitator and award-winning writer who specialises in Young Adult fiction. As a Creative Associate, she will research and write a new Young Adult novel, as well as running creative activity for neurodiverse young people, in line with the themes of her work.
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Lucy Farfort
Lucy is a children’s book illustrator and author whose work often centres on themes of representation, community, and hope. Farfort’s debut picture book, In Our Hands, was shortlisted for the prestigious Jhalak Prize and longlisted for The Little Rebels Award. As a Creative Associate she will collaborate with pupils from a local primary school to develop a new children’s book inspired by Arthur’s Hill.
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Arlen Pettitt
Arlen Pettitt is a non-fiction writer and policy consultant – and the author of a weekly newsletter, called Wor Room, on regional politics. He will develop a series of essays exploring North East masculinity, community, and identity.
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Peter Groom
Peter Groom is a performer and artist, whose work has been commissioned by Battersea Arts Centre and Northern Stage. He will develop a new piece of writing for performance that depicts Newcastle in 2033 in the aftermath of an environmental catastrophe.
Discover our past Creative Associates projects
Meet our Creative Associates 2022-23
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Tammie Ash
Tammie Ash is a new writer from Bradford keen to bring more South Asian voices to books. She’s hoping to write for children and tell stories that include the culture and experiences of Indian women.
She’s an alumna of New Writing North’s A Writing Chance project to support working-class and underrepresented voices. As part of this, she’s written for publications such as the New Statesman and the Mirror and was part of the ‘Margins to Mainstream’ podcast on BBC Sounds with Michael Sheen.
She recently completed training in investigative journalism with the Centre for Investigative Journalism on the Lyra McKee Scheme 2022 alongside her day job as a researcher in factual TV where she’s worked on shows for Channel 4 and the BBC. Prior to this, she studied and worked as a civil engineer.
Tammie joined NWN as a Creative Associate (Residency). Over nine months she worked on developing her skills as a picture book writer and working with an experienced mentor, as well as advising on and supporting our talent development programmes.
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Adam Cooper
Adam Cooper has over a decade of experience in senior roles and consulting in the cultural sector, an MBA from Durham University, and a PG Dip in Leadership and Philanthropy. Most recently, he was Executive Director of Invisible Dust, a leading art and science organisation.
As a Creative Associate at New Writing North, Adam is working to co-create climate action with communities and advising on NWN’s climate action work. During his time as Creative Associate, Adam is founding a new climate hope organisation, Threads in the Ground, which he plans to launch at the end of his tenure with us.
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Sharmin Islam
Sharmin Islam joined New Writing North as a Creative Associate Intern, having recently graduated from Northumbria University in International Relations and Politics. Due to taking up an MA in South Asian Politics at Oxford University, Sharmin’s internship lasted three months.
Sharmin previously completed an editorial internship at Picador and has written for The F Word Feminist Magazine, aurelia magazine, and gal-dem. She is interested in both publishing and editorial, particularly writing about her lived experience as a South Asian woman living in Newcastle.
As a Creative Associate Intern, Sharmin developed her own practice as a facilitator and producer, especially in the South Asian community. She created the popular writing group Brown Girls Write, which continue to meet weekly in Newcastle. Sharmin also worked with staff across New Writing North on a wide range of projects including A Writing Chance and Young Writers.
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Adam Sharp
Adam Sharp is a novelist, non-fiction writer, and former music journalist, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Adam’s book about language and lists, The Correct Order of Biscuits, was published by Orion in 2020. The Wheel is Spinning but the Hamster is Dead: A Journey Around the World in Idioms, Proverbs and General Nonsense will be published in September 2023. His short piece of memoir ‘Play’ was published in Kit de Waal’s Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers. He has an MA in creative writing from St Mary’s University and a PhD in creative writing from Northumbria University.
At New Writing North, Adam is working on a new book that combines memoir and journalism to explore the effects, both physical and mental, of being a heroin baby. Both of Adam’s parents were heroin addicts and his mother took heroin throughout her pregnancy with him.
Adam also created and hosts New Writing North’s literary salon-cum-scratch night, Read Them Your Writes.