Author Archives: James

About James

James specialises in digital literary heritage projects. He spends most of his time in front of a computer screen writing about life instead of living it. Therefore, do not trust a word he says.

Nottingham City of Literature: Talk to National Union of Teachers

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Photo by City of Literature.

Since Nottingham’s accreditation as a UNESCO City of Literature, we’ve had a silly amount of emails. Quite a few of these are from local organisations asking for a representative to come and give a talk about what the fancy title means and how they can get involved.

On 25 Feb I addressed the National Union of Teachers (NUT) for their Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire branch. I snapped up the chance because the event was hosted at Mogal e Azam, an Indian restaurant opposite the Theatre Royal. I was lured by the offer of a free curry, which is the first form of ‘payment’ I’ve had since becoming a director of Nottingham City of Literature. But before you get all excited at my luxurious lifestyle, I had to pay for my own drinks.

The gathering was pretty much what you’d expect from a Union meeting; the highlight of which was hearing a request for an amendment to be made to an amendment. But on a serious note, there’s some pretty tough issues that teachers need to address. The most recent being the government’s plans to convert all schools into Academies. Needless to say the meeting over ran by an hour or two. When it was my turn to address the 20 or so teachers I managed about four words before being halted by the clatter of plates as the waiters – who, despite their job title, do not like waiting for people to finish what they’re saying – had begun serving up the mains. The food smelled lovely so there was no point having a hissy fit. We would continue after the mains.

When everyone was suitably bloated and tired, I took the stage. The audience has shrunk down to about eight people, with many having to shoot off due to childcare duties. This also included the host who had invited me over to give the talk. It was a humbling experience that I won’t forget in a hurry. Every time I look at the curry stain on my shirt that won’t come out, I’ll think: NUTs.

Joking aside, I was really eager to talk to the teachers because improving literacy is one of the City of Literature’s core goals. According to the most recent report from the OECD, Britain is now officially the most illiterate country in the developed world. This is why I positioned illiteracy as a form of child poverty in my Dawn of the Unread manifesto in 2014. Literacy levels are a particular concern in Nottingham as we are below the national levels. Therefore listening to teachers and offering them support is absolutely vital if we are to achieve our ambitious aims.

Certain areas of Nottingham need real support at the moment as they include high levels of deprivation and intergenerational worklessness and are really feeling the brunt of welfare reform. In the face of these challenges we’re committed to doing everything we can to help our children and young people achieve their full potential and learn the necessary skills to progress and become valued members of their community. We passionately believe that participation in creative learning activities, speaking and listening work, reading for pleasure, storytelling and storymaking and engagement with writers from all disciplines, is key to developing literacy as a core skill for all our young people. And that participation in shared literature-based activities is at the core of developing strong resilient communities.

Numerous research, in particular that produced by the National Literacy Trust, has shown the correlation between literacy levels and social outcomes. People with low literacy levels are less likely to vote, less likely to get married or be homeowners, and most worrying of all, have the least ‘trust’ in society. I could go on…

Teachers are under enormous pressure at the moment too. Putting aside the endless marking, long hours, and Ofsted inspections, they are also expected to teach to classrooms of increasingly diverse pupils. I witnessed this first hand last year when I took Dawn of the Unread to Djanogly Academy. I was informed by one member of staff that the school was 60-65% non English speaking as a first language. Therefore teachers are faced with the impossible task of teaching pupils from a broad range of countries who don’t even have language in common. Remembering that those non English speakers are from a wide variety of countries and so there isn’t even a second language in common. The result is boredom and apathy in the classroom as there simply aren’t the resources to give each pupil the individualised teaching they require. But I digress.

Low literacy levels, then, are not just about the diminishing attention spans of mobile-phone-obsessed youth. Not just about digital versus print media. But about language, aspirations, poverty, overcrowding, resources, pressure, support networks and multiculturalism.

The City of Literature team has now created a sub group headed up by Sue Dymoke which focusses on all issues relating to literacy. It’s a working group of around 30 people who work in various capacities within education and relevant sectors and was formed out of an open callout. Their findings will determine how we as a board go about achieving our literacy goals and implementing a strategy to support teachers, parents and children.

Complimenting this is the recently formed Cultural Education Partnership (CUP), a network of education, cultural, heritage and arts organisatons working together to address the inequalities in access to culture among young ‘uns in Nottingham. I attended their first meeting on Thursday 24 March and the most important issue raised was demand is more important than supply. In this sense, raising literacy levels isn’t just about flooding schools with writers but creating the desire for reading and writing from the pupils. For this to happen we need to listen to what children have to say.

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MondayBlogs: How to create a literature radio show

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Artwork by LeftLion.

The WriteLion Literary Podcast is now broadcast at the end of each month when LeftLion magazine is published. It’s recorded in the NG Digital studios, a wonderful cavernous building that feels like a cross between a Manhatten Apartment and a squat. NG Digital is the brainchild of Jason Loftus, who I first met a while ago when he was running Trent Sound. Like lots of things that happen in Notts, they’re really open to suggestions for themed programmes. So if you’ve got an idea, just say hello and I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to accommodate you.

If you’re thinking of putting together a literature show, here’s how it works. First, get a variety of presenters. This means you don’t have to do everything, the listener gets to hear a variety of voices and approaches to interviewing, and the marketing takes care of itself as people and guests are usually keen to plug their own work.

One of our presenters is Chris McLoughlin. He’s a member of Mouthy Poets and a lot younger than me, so he’s able to bring in audiences and guests I’ve probably not heard of. Mouthy Poets are an incredible collective of young people who, uniquely for a literature organisation, both mentor each other in terms of creative output but also offer professional and business development so that they can make money out of doing the thing that they love for a living. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs my disappointment at attendance of literary events in Nottingham. Mouthy are an exception. Their events always sell out way in advance and so there’s a lot we can learn from them. Hopefully some of that audience will come our way too…

Chris is one of our presenters because he had the balls to email me and offer to be the resident LeftLion poet. As is often the case in life, his timing was perfect. I couldn’t justify a resident poet in LeftLion magazine but he was welcome to have free rein on air.

Our second presenter is Stacey Wylie, a second year Creative Writing student at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). I advertised this through NTUs Humanities at Work placement scheme and had to positively discriminate to ensure we got a female presenter. I’ve asked Stacey to try a kind of literary Bridget Jones style approach to her slot. In the Bridget Jones novels (I have read them. I did enjoy them. So there), each chapter starts with a list of cigarettes she’s smoked, weight she’s put on etc. This could be adjusted for literature in terms of books read, rejection letters for submitted work, etc. She’s just done an interview with Dr.Teika Bellamy, who recently won Women in Publishing Award for Best New Venture for her niche publishing concept Mother’s Milk Books. This will feature in our March podcast.

I also spoke to four writers from Nottingham Playhouse and offered them a bespoke spot exploring writing and drama but so far they haven’t recorded anything.

With regards to planning shows, it’s easy. Jason sets aside a few hours each day. I check availability with guests. We book them in. I try to book in as many guests at once, preferably so that I’ve content for three shows in one sitting. This means it doesn’t eat too much into my time which is the reason the original show stopped after nine episodes.

Once in the studio I have a little chat about what we’re going to cover but nothing too prescriptive. It’s more a case of focussing on a particular theme and checking the guest is happy to cover certain subjects. Then we sit down and chat. My aim is always 10 minutes (making the overall show 30 minutes)  but it always spills over (usually 45 mins).

My approach to interviewing is simple. Let the guests speak. They’re the ones who have something interesting to say and given our time restraints, listeners don’t need to hear me waffling on like it’s The Late Show. If there’s something urgent I want to say I wave my hand about, enabling the guest to bring their comments to a natural conclusion, rather than butting in. And I am waving, not drowning. This is a simple technique to control the flow of conversation without turning into John Humphrys.

When the show is recorded, NG Digital top and tail it and then stream it through their website. The audio is then sent to LeftLion and someone uploads it through our podcast channel. Independent radio stations are gagging for content. The more diverse their output, the more listeners, the more you can charge for advertising. Simple. This is why it doesn’t cost me anything, other than a few hours of my time each month.

Selecting a variety of guests is important as is subject matter. I want the show to provide advice from experts in their respective fields in order that listeners might try similar. It’s important to dispel the myth that writers were born writers and only kryptonite can stop them producing bestsellers. It comes from hard graft and occasionally serendipity.

Here’s what we’ve done so far or have lined up for future shows.

  • Writing for computer games
  • How to create a digital audio trail using fremium software
  • Kickstarting a project
  • Life of a freelancer
  • Writing historical fiction
  • Setting up a publishing house.

WriteLion 10

In our latest broadcast Christopher Phelps talks about his co-written, political book Radicals in America, that looks at the history of left-wing movements. The ever so charismatic Miggy Angel gives us some prose poetry in the form of Kiss of Death, and talks about his weekly creative writing workshop for people suffering from drug and alcohol abuse. Chris McLoughlin introduces poetry from three of Nottingham’s Mouthy Poets – Beccy Shore, Patrick Spring, and LeftLion’s Bridie Squires.

Listen to WriteLion 10 here