Hello Writers!
It was incredible to meet you at the launch of our Why We Write project at Kilburn Library on Tuesday and hear from you about why you write.
For some of us, writing is an escape, it's therapeutic, it’s how we get inspired. Others enjoy living in a character’s skin, exploring another world through their eyes, and distilling it. It’s storytelling and a way to make a contribution. Writing brings clarity for some of us, while for others it’s a compulsion they can’t resist despite the difficulty. For many of us it’s a way to bring hidden stories, including about women and overlooked communities, into the light.
A huge thank you to you for sharing your thoughts about your writing. And enormous gratitude to Shrabani for sharing with us why she’s driven to unearth stories about extraordinary individuals who have been ignored over time, or evidence of their impact has been actively buried. The contribution she’s made to enriching our lives by painstakingly revealing these stories is deeply inspiring to us as writers. We loved having you come to talk to us.
(And huge congratulations Shrabani on joining the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2027 judging panel announced this week!)
We’re really grateful to Brent Libraries, our project partner, for hosting us so beautifully. Find more news on what’s going on across the library network for writers at the end of this email.
As we mentioned, we are hosting further Why We Write workshops in Brighton (27 October) with bestselling author Dorothy Koomson, York (26 November) with professor of creative writing at Durham University Naomi Booth, Lewisham (27 January 2027) with playwright and poet Inua Ellams, and Folkestone (2 February 2027) with crime writer Charlie Gallagher. All events 6-8pm and tickets are £10 (+fee) and available on Eventbrite. If you know other writers in those locations who might like to attend, please do tell them about the workshops. More info here.
We are also running an Open Submission process and inviting writers to send us a piece of work that’s meaningful to you (max 1,000 words) to be included in our Showcase in June 2027 at Deptford Town Hall, to which you are all invited.
You can read more about how and where to submit here and what you’ll receive if your work is selected. It’s free and open to any kind of writing, brand new or published, but it has to be your own, human-authored work. You don’t need to have attended a workshop to submit, so please spread the word to interested writers. More details about the Showcase to follow.
We would love to stay in touch with you so we can update you on the progress of the project, including a Facilitator Workshop we’ll be running in the summer next year to train interested writers in delivering our workshop format. Please keep an eye out for news on that.
And thank you to those who have already filled out an Evaluation Form. That’s so helpful for us to develop our workshops and also useful for future funding applications. If you haven’t yet, you can complete the short form here.
We hope to see you at another one of our events. And, for whatever reason you write, we hope you keep doing it.
Until then,
Victoria and Cindy
Brent Libraries News!
Brent Libraries is running a number of free events for writers across the library network and would like to tell you about upcoming events, including: