National Association for Literature Development

On 26th February, together with the Scottish Arts Council, we hosted writers and readers in residence in Scotland, at the Edinburgh College of Art.  The event relaxed and informal, was an opportunity to meet other writers in residence, past and present, working across Scotland. The day was made up of workshops, sharing practice and exploring new media, and informal group discussions. Sessions were led by Tim Turnbull, formerly Writer in at HMP Edinburgh, HMYOI Werrington and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, founder editor of confiction.org and social media expert Colin Fraser, and John Rice Writer in Residence Strathclyde Partnership for Transport.

On February 4th, at the City Inn Leeds, we hosted the first meeting of directors from the regional literature and writer development agencies; New Writing North, Writing East Midlands, Writing West Midlands, Writers' Centre Norwich, New Writing South, Spread the Word and Cyprus Well. We shared experience, the different way each agency came into being and has grown, what we offer and to whom. We discussed our relationship with our funders, partners and their policies and explored possible collaborations. We also had a presentation from Jennie Godsalve of Creative & Cultural Skills on Creative Apprenticeships and the Future Job Fund.

NALD has always seen its role as bringing together literature people who want to meet and share their skills and experience. We also have plans to create spaces for leaders of literature organisations to meet and to continue the roving freelancers network meetings, the first of which took place in Manchester this year.  Watch this space!

NALD is delighted to be a partner in Global Poetry System (GPS).  Combining the geographical networking capacity of the internet with the idea that poetry is all around us, Southbank Centre has created GPS, a website that encourages members of the public to seek out, upload and share poetry.

From an engraving on a statue in a town square to a line of graffiti on the way to work, poetry resonates with just about everyone. Whether it is a sentimental line on a Valentine’s Day card or a nursery rhyme remembered from school, GPS uses Google maps to pinpoint the location of the poems that surround us and reveals the unique personal stories and memories behind them.

Highlights of poetry uploaded so far include; a profound sentence scrawled across a Seattle gallery wall that haunts its reader “I can’t be what you want me to be” ; a small but significant grammatical device used in a customer sign reveals more than a hint of sarcasm from a bitter Edinburgh pub owner ‘“Sorry” Toilets for customer use only’ , and a piece of graffiti alludes to the local nickname for a fish and chip shop whose staff could regularly be found dancing along to hip hop videos.

GPS is the vision of poet and Southbank Centre Artist in Residence, Lemn Sissay working with Southbank Centre’s Learning and Participation team. Intrigued by the idea of found poetry, Lemn initially set out to track down all the poems that were present across the Southbank Centre 21- acre site. Having collected over five hundred poems in this one location, Lemn was inspired to extend the search for poetry globally. Together with Southbank Centre, NALD GPS Ambassadors Tom Chivers, Dzifa Benson, Chloe Garner, Joseph Coelho, David Cooper, Cathy Bolton, Claire Morgan and Charles Beckett are encouraging the world to get collecting in an effort to share and map poetry.

G.P.S partners include Academi, Apples & Snakes, Beverley Literature Festival, Dylan Thomas Centre, LitfestDylan Thomas Centre, , National Association of Literature Development, The Scottish Poetry Library, The Verbal Arts Centre

The NALD Ambassador Scheme was launched at the Only Connect Expo in 2007. The project aimed to actively identify and harness emerging talent, engage with the knowledge and expertise within the NALD membership, form relationships between members and develop the infrastructure and capacity of the Literature Development sector through its activities.

The scheme was a reciprocal volunteer scheme, . long term in scope and giving volunteers the opportunity to advance their own professional development while acting as advocates for the literature development sector.

We developed a wealth of reflection and documentation from the ambassadors we have worked with so far, all coming to the NALD soon.