"There's nothing like it in the world" - Claire Malcolm
Writing centre on track
Claire Malcolm, founding chief executive of New Writing North, opened her remarks at a lively Northern Writers’ Awards celebration and showcase with an update on the proposed new centre for writing and publishing in Newcastle.
“We are about to buy the Old Post Office,” she said.
Seven years in the planning (although with several previous possible sites looked at), £10.7 million had been raised and “a new generation of storytellers” would soon see the benefits of the proposed facility opposite St Nicholas’ Cathedral.
It would enable a scaling up of activity, creating new opportunities for young people and new creative jobs.
“You’ll be able to grow up here, dream of becoming a writer or publisher and not have to leave the North East to do it,” Claire told her audience of writers and cultural figures from across the north of England (and many others watching online).
The aim, she said, was to “rebalance” the UK reading and writing scene. “The North is rising!” she declared in a nod to Newcastle writer and academic Alex Niven’s recent book, The North Will Rise Again.
Later she said privately that she expected the purchase to have gone through by the end of July and hoped the new centre would be open by the end of 2028.
The £10.7 million had been pledged by the Government’s Cultural Development Fund (£5 million); longtime partner the University of Northumbria, where Wednesday night’s celebration was held (£2.5 million); the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority (£2 million); and The Julia Rausing Trust (£200,000).
But she said the actual purchase price was less than £4 million.
The rest would be invested in a major refit of the building to make it net zero and ensure it would not become a burden in future years.
There had also been a determination not to borrow money, thereby saddling the facility with a large debt, which she suggested had been the case with other similar cultural sector projects over the last 20 years.
Money had been pledged with a view to the long term and complex work around financial governance had had to be undertaken ahead of completion of purchase.
Architects, Claire said, were being interviewed at the moment – and you would imagine this would be an appealing if challenging project, involving as it does a prominent late 19th Century listed building.
Tenants of the new building, all related to writing and publishing, would pay rent as part of a sustainable business model, said Claire.
So it’s all systems go – and all at the Northern Writers’ Awards showcase, amiably hosted by writer and broadcaster Nick Ahad, seemed buoyed by the news.
“We’re creating something completely unique with a vision that is all our own,” said Claire, who started New Writing North 30 years ago with a room, a typewriter and virtually a blank sheet of paper.
“There’s nothing like it in the world. We’ll take stories from the North to the world and bring the world’s stories back here.”
The annual showcase saw 27 writers from across the north of England presented with their award certificates and there were readings from Rozie Kelly, Millie Heavenly Davidson, Connor Dorrian, Tawseef Khan and Princess Arinola Adegbite.
Moving tribute was paid by Helen Dalby, acting chair of New Writing North, to late chair Neil Warwick OBE who died in January.