WRITE TO ROAM
Young Writers Residencies 2023
We are currently looking to engage three young writers aged 18-30 years old as paid Writers-in-Residence
from June to October 2023, as part of our continued partnership with Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT).
THEME
The focus of the residencies will be to explore a wide range of questions about LAND: land justice, access to the countryside, the right to roam, displacement, walking, wildness, biodiversity and nature, to align with both The GAP’s themed programme of activity for young people for summer 2023, and SBT’s green sites, walking routes and collections in and around Stratford-upon-Avon.
WHERE WILL I BE BASED?
You will be mainly based in our inner-city, Balsall Heath venue, engaging with local young people through our youth engagement programme, a range of exhibitions, thematically-linked projects and The GAP’s in-house creative facilitation training. Crucially, you will also spend time immersing yourself outdoors, in the gardens of Shakespeare’s childhood home, Anna Hathaway’s cottage farm, and the country landscapes around Stratford.
WHAT WILL I BE DOING?
Specifically, the three writers-in-residence will be walking, exploring and taking inspiration from The Welcombe Hills, an SBT site consisting of 60 hectares of flower-rich grassland, woods and ponds around Stratford, with views across the Warwickshire landscape towards Birmingham. Over the course of the residency you will create a range of new writings based on your time in the hills, and on your ideas about both Shakespeare’s and y/our own impact on the land - and vice versa. Your work will be published and/or exhibited in The GAP’s gallery, and at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which has hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and a vast international reach, giving your work wide exposure to new audiences.
WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
This is a paid opportunity for West Midlands-based young writers aged 18-30 years old who are currently producing their own poetry, short stories or any other forms of prose, and looking to progress into a professional writing career. You will explore themes and practices together and individually, be willing to try new approaches, respond to a wide range of stimuli, and be willing
to give and receive peer support, whilst also being open to constructive feedback from professional creatives. You will have a genuine interest in producing work related to land, land justice, environmentalism, nature or the outdoors generally, and a love of walking and walking journeys. We'd especially like to work with people from backgrounds historically and presently excluded from the English countryside, for example disabled people and those from working class, BIPOC, and GRT communities.
DO I NEED EXPERIENCE?
Applicants need to have an existing practice of writing creatively, but need not have been published or been previously engaged professionally as a writer. No experience of the countryside is needed.
DURATION
The residencies will be part-time (approx. 1.5 days/wk), start in June and complete in October 2023.
FEE
£2,000 for each writer-in-residence. Travel will be covered.
HOW DO I APPLY?
To apply, please send:
-
two recent pieces of original writing
-
a cover letter explaining:
a) why being a writer-in-residence at The GAP appeals to you, and
b) in what ways the themes inspire you.
Send to: admin@thegapartsproject.co.uk putting WRITER 2023 in the subject box.
Deadline: 26th May