Words by Sinead Nunes, Editor
Cultural commentator, budding critic or aspiring writer? Whatever you call yourself, the one thing troubling every wordsmith is how to get that first step on the ladder. Whether it’s about meeting editors, getting your first article published, or looking for advice from the professionals, we’ve got some good news for you!
Art in Liverpool, in collaboration with fellow North West visual arts platforms The Double Negative, Creative Tourist and Culture on a Shoestring (a magazine run by and for young people) have been working together on creating a programme to meet the needs of emerging writing talent in the region. Together with the help of MMU and UCLAN, we hope to provide you with the opportunities you’ve been looking for to start your writing career.
Beginning with a programme of six essential workshops (11 March – 2 May) run by experts in the fields of writing, publication and distribution, we will be taking 25 emerging writers on a career development journey. From learning how to pitch to editors, to knowing the best platforms to use to get your work noticed, we hope to give you the tools you need to get published.
Once the workshops have come to an end, a team of mentors will be on hand to give you further support. Each writer will be assigned to one of the participating platforms and receive a bursary of £300 in exchange for writing a review and a critical feature about an exhibition or art event of your choice.
Now for the fun part: your bursary is in place to allow you to explore arts venues and exhibitions that you wouldn’t normally get the chance to visit, and write about or interview artists you wouldn’t usually meet. The only criteria for your writing will be to focus on art happening in the North West, as through his programme we aim to support galleries, artists and arts professionals throughout the region, as well as the incredible writing talent we know we have up here!
So what are you waiting for? To find out more and download an application form, click here.
If you have any questions about the application, get in touch with us direct at artinliverpool@gmail.com
We can’t wait to see your application, so best of luck to everyone applying. Remember, you must be over 18 to apply.