National Association for Literature Development

National Association for Literature Development building a strong sector together

Frequently Asked Questions FAQs

What Does NALD Do?

The Organisation

The National Association for Literature Development (NALD) is a membership body that offers information, advice, resources and networking opportunities to literature professionals – the range of practitioners, writers and creatives who work in literature development.

NALD is a regularly funded organisation and is a not-for-profit limited company. It is funded by Arts Council England (ACE) for its activity in England.

What is literature development?

We define ‘literature development’ as the area of work or activity that develops reading, writing and literature audiences. This includes running a literature agency, independent publishing, running creative writing workshops or projects, teaching or lecturing in creative writing or literature, commercial publishing, working for a library service, agenting writers, managing a literature festival, producing, curating or programming literature events, working in a specialist area linked to literature/arts practice such as regeneration, running a literature department or company, working as a freelancer and/or managing a varied portfolio freelance career and running a small creative business in literature.

What is the Staffing Structure of the Organisation?

The Director Melanie Abrahams runs the organisation, sets the vision with the Board of Management and fosters and steers strategic partnerships and four-nations collaboration. Kath Kelly manages the membership service and projects.

What is the Ambassadors Programme?

We run a year round Ambassadors programme which was first set up in October 2007. We firstly advertised for a team of Ambassador volunteers who would be interested in working with us, informing our activity and assisting us in developing our provision, in return for professional and leadership development mentoring and resources. The five ambassadors we took on in 2007 Yemisi Blake, Inua Ellams, Kath Kelly (nee Stephens), Eileen Pun and Nkechi Ebite represent the diversity of our sector: they live and/or work in the North West, West Midlands, North East and London. As a group they span careers and experience in literature producing, tutoring, creative writing student, marketing and writing/illustration and have cultural origins in Nigeria, England, Jamaica, Cuba and China.

Between 2007 and 2008 they accessed:

• CPD courses including Project Management and marketing
• first-hand experience in co-producing a three day Expo which included taking on roles such as chairing sessions, recording events and managing activities.
• Leadership development including attendance at a sharing knowledge presentation as part of the Cultural Leadership Programme. Two of the ambassadors were nominated by NALD and took part in a Discovering Voices one-week course for emerging entrepreneurial leaders at the ICA.
• mentoring from the Director, with four meetings in a year, including the opportunity to have a one-to-one coaching session.

The year culminated in the ambassadors beginning audio and video projects based on an area of literature development of their choice. You can listen to Yemisi Blake’s podcast on blogging and Kath Kelly's Podcast on Leadership here

The first phase of the programme has been extremely rewarding for NALD in terms of:

• Significantly increasing our organizational capacity and output through volunteers who ‘learn and develop by doing’
• developing a cost-effective shadowing programme
• encouraging peer-to-peer mentoring
• demystifying the literature development process for emerging practitioners; and
• demonstrating diversity and the value of cultural and artistic representation through ambassadorships

We will continue the programme in 2009 and will be recruiting for new Ambassadors shortly.

The Ambassadors programme expands from the Volunteer Programme to a brand new service: an online advice service starting in mid-May, for which members can pose questions to a group of advisors on areas covering project management, freelancing, regeneration, careers and other facets of literature development.

What geographical areas does NALD cover? We cover the UK, working primarily in England which is where we started and have historically run projects, but with an expanding membership in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. We will profile professionals over the coming months so that visitors to the website can see the broad range of roles that people have.

What is NALD’s Vision?

To foster a united voice for literature development through our membership offer as well as joined-up collaboration, networking and lobbying.

In general, we further the interests of members, and of the UK literature development sector in general, through initiatives that encourage professionals to connect, talk to each other, develop their professional skills and make a case for increased investment in their activity. We have formed partnerships and made connections with organisations and institutions to enable us to do this including Creative People, Literaturetraining, National Association for Writers in Education (NAWE), Creative and Cultural Skills, Spread the Word, New Writing Partnership, Friendly Literature Organisations, the Scottish Poetry Library, Urban Words and Southbank Centre.

Specifically, what does NALD offer?

For an annual membership of £30, NALD offers:

A website offering provision and insights into literature development, and members services including:

• a Directory of Literature Professionals
• an easy way to contact fellow members on our members pages
• a free website entry to promote you or your work
• news listings
• job ads
• local and regional information and training opportunities
• a quarterly online magazine 'Literature Professional'
• a monthly e-bulletin 'E-latest'

We create opportunities for literature development specialists to meet, we commission reflective work and we seek opportunities to make the case for literature through having a strong and strategic presence on boards and sector planning groups.

During the year we provide training, through one-day courses and longer induction and CPD programmes such as our mentoring programme 'Spread Your Wings'. These services are open to all literature professionals with significantly reduced rates for NALD members.

Updated April 2009