The Rhyme Rocket will aid basic literacy among early years children and open the audience’s eyes to a mouth-watering world of tongue-twisting, eye-popping and laugh out loud rhymes, poems and songs. It is due to be aired in mid-March, with a second series in the summer. The BBC is looking for for enthusiastic performers/poets with great ideas which will engage and entertain the young audience of 4-6 year-olds. The performances should be 15 minutes each and could be combined with an end performance with up to 90 children interacting. Deadline for applications: Friday 24 February.Click through to see the BBC brief.

We’ve teamed up with NALD, the National Association for Literature Development, to create a literary map of northern England. Over the coming months, we’ll be helping staff at NALD collate information and contact details of every person and organisation in the North East, North West and Yorkshire who’s involved in literature development, publishing or book events.

Congratulations to New Writing North alumnus Peter Straughan who along with his late partner, Bridget O’Connor, has been nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation of John le Carre’s Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. Peter was one of the first writers whose career New Writing North helped along. He won the People’s Play competition many years ago and went on to write for Live Theatre, to win the BBC Alfred Bradley award and to be commissioned by many other producers.

Once again we’re inviting writers across the north east of England to submit their work of poetry or prose for the chance to win a share of a £25,000 prize pot. Writers are invited to submit up to 3,000 words or up to 30 poems of a work in development and are open to any resident of the North East (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and the Tees Valley) writing fiction, narrative non-fiction, poetry or children’s books.

The People’s Theatre and New Writing North are pleased to announce the return of the People’s Play Award. This biennial competition is run to find an exciting new play that will be produced for one week in the studio theatre at the People's Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne, in November 2012. The winning writer will receive an award of £2,000.

ArtWorks North East consists of a group of partners from cultural organisations in the north east area, led by Sunderland University. They are looking for artists, producers, art makers, academics, and practitioners to make a contribution to contemporary research via participation in peer artist learning and focus groups.

Niel Bushnell’s Sorrowline, the book that won him a Northern Writers’ Award this year, and a second novel, Timesmith, have been sold to Andersen Press. German-language rights to both books have also sold to publishers Heyne in a two-book deal worth six figures. Both of Niel’s books feature Jack Morrow, a boy who discovers he can move through time using ‘sorrowlines’, lines that connect every grave to the day of that person’s death.

Brass: Durham International Festival returns in July 2012 for another fortnight of events celebrating contemporary brass music. Brass: Pitch is an open call to creative practitioners, individual or collective, based in England working in any art form including interdisciplinary arts practices.

We are currently reading and assessing the entries to our first Northern Crime competition run to find new work for our new Moth imprint which we have created in conjunction with The Leighton Group. The project was our first ‘Greater North’ project and was open to writers from across the north of England. Entries came from across this new area of interest. We look forward to announcing the winning writers in the new year.

We are about to begin a professional development programme for talented new North East poets from the Northern Writers’ Awards in association with the Poetry School. Led by writer and editor Clare Pollard, the programme will see the group editing and developing their work and exploring new publication opportunities. It’s our first joint project with the Poetry School and we are delighted to be working in partnership with them.

We were successful in raising £30,500 from Science City’s ERDF-funded Public Engagement Programme to support three writers’ residencies in dementia care settings. The project is part of a public engagement programme running alongside a new play by Fiona Evans that Live Theatre and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough is commissioning. The play with songs, Geordie Sinatra, explores issues around dementia.

Edition 1 of Cuckoo Quarterly, the new online literary magazine written and edited by writers aged between 11-19, was launched last Friday 28 October and is now available to read at www.cuckooquarterly.com. Cuckoo Quarterly aims to publish the best young writing from all forms and genres and to be accessible and attractive to a wide readership.

Congratulations to North East poet Sean O’Brien, whose collection, November (Picador), has been shortlisted for the 2011 TS Eliot Prize for Poetry. Sean won the prize in 2007 with The Drowned Book. That same year, he won the Northern Rock Foundation Writers’ Award, as well as the Forward Prize for Best Collection. This was the first time a poet had been awarded the Forward and the Eliot prizes in the same year. Also among the honours was Northumberland-based publisher Bloodaxe Books, which was shortlisted for Esther Morgan’s collection, Grace.

National Glass Centre, Sunderland: November 2011
We’ve brought together the great and the good of writing and publishing from the region, Edinburgh and London to offer writers in the North East a series of workshops on five different themes, culminating in a one-day conference entitled Get Your Work Published. You can sign up to any combination of workshops, which will deal with short stories, poetry, life-writing and memoir, novel writing, and script writing.

The programme for the 21st Durham Book Festival was announced at a literary garden party at Crook Hall on 23 August, with special guest Vanessa Diffenbaugh, an American author who will be launching her newly-published debut novel, The Language of Flowers. This year’s Durham Book Festival takes place from 17-23 October, with special trailblazing events in County Durham in September and early October. The full programme is available to download and look through at www.durhambookfestival.com, where you'll also find booking details.

Wunderbar Festival and New Writing North are opening a new and unique library for the region this autumn and are looking for ‘Books’ to fill it. The Human Library has a specific purpose – to challenge stereotypes and to confront stigma, prejudice and discrimination in all forms.

The Human Library works just like a normal library – open to all, readers choose from a catalogue and borrow a Book for a limited period of time, returning it for others to share. The thing about the Human Library though is that these ‘Books’ are people and ‘reading’ them involves a conversation.



We are looking for 25 people with diverse backgrounds to participate in this exciting project by volunteering to be Books in our library. Human Books will share their life experiences with others and be candid about their worldview. A sense of humour and a willingness to engage with a wide range of people is essential in a good Book.
 

Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham: Monday 22-Friday 26 August, 11am-3.30pm
Alington House, Durham: Monday 22-Friday 26 August, 11am-3.30pm
Time is running out to sign up for the New Writing North summer schools for young writers. The schools will give 12-18 year-olds the opportunity to have a go at a different type of writing every day, from poetry to creating an urban fantasy adventure, under the guidance of inspirational writers. This is a fun, informal week which is open to all young people from the serious budding novelist to the interested novice, and it’s absolutely free.

Have you ever fancied writing a play but not really known where to start? Wanted to write fiction set in another time or world? Like to learn to tweet about something other than what you had for tea last night? Over the summer, New Writing North will be hosting a week’s worth of writing workshops specifically aimed at 13-19-year-olds that will give you the opportunity to take your writing to new places.

New Writing North is currently developing a number of writing projects involving young people. We will be working with a range of groups including those who are already interested in writing, young people who have never been involved in creative projects before, and ‘harder to reach’ young people, or specific communities of interest. We want to update our network of writers who are interested in working in the field.