Inscribe

West Country writer Louisa Adjoa Parker has recently been awarded an Arts Council England grant for a year's artistic development. Louisa will be working with several mentors - Clio Gray, Jan Fortune and Jacob Ross - to develop her current body of work. She will be working with Clio on her first novel; Jan will be mentoring her with her second full-length poetry collection; and Jacob will be mentoring Louisa with a first short story collection and second novel.

This week's session (Saturday 14th may 4-6pm) will be a  practical writing one. Award-winning playwright, poet and novelist Pete Kalu will guide you through a creative 10 step exercise in mystery and suspense writing which will take your imagination and creativity to unexpected places as you explore the fear of the unknown...Here's a sneak peak at step one to get you started:

by Kadija Sesay

The writing that poets produced in our April Filigree workshop inspired and excited me enough to share the ideas that emerged with you! Consider these a last-minute guide to writing a poem for our forthcoming Filigree anthology.

We looked at the word 'filigree' from three angles: filigree as image, filigree as character, and filigree turned on its head and inside out.

Valda Jackson has been reading her fiction and showcasing a new film in recent months. What's next for this exciting new writer? Literary archaeology, of course!

The short list for the ChipLitFest Short Story Competition includes Inscribe writer and Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories contributor Lynne E. Blackwood.

The shortlist is:

We're thrilled to announce that Inscribe-supported writer Gemma Weekes has been named a runner-up for the Kit de Waal scholarship at Birkbeck, University of London. Though she doesn't receive the scholarship, she will receive 'lots of support' during her MA in Creative Writing.

Entries are currently being accepted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize, the biennial prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women!

With patrons including Monica Ali and Bernadine Evaristo, the prize aims to celebrate the voices of Black and Asian female writers in the U.K., and address the under-representation of these women in U.K. publishing.

Our last Inscribe masterclass, which took place at Commonword in Manchester, was a roaring success. Nii Ayikwei Parkes led participants in developing poetry that engaged with the theme of our upcoming anthology, Filigree. The results were surprising and showed a wide variety of responses to the theme.

Feedback from the city was also really positive. We're sharing it here.

An exciting oppportunity to craft your poetry with Kadija Sesay, the award-winning co-editor of Filigree, a new anthology of contemporary Black British poetry. Under her sure hand you will create potential submissions for this new anthology, which will be published by Peepal Tree Press in Spring 2017.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes joined a group of our Inscribe-supported writers in Leeds to discuss submissions for our forthcoming anthology, Filigree.

Filigree will follow on from our groundbreaking anthologies Red and Closure. There's still time to submit to the anthology, so make sure you check out the submission guidelines.