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News from New Writing North: 27 February 2026
Jerwood Fellowship recipients announced
We’re delighted to announce that Kym Deyn, Katherine Horrex and J.A. Mensah have been selected as the recipients of the Jerwood Fellowships at New Writing North. The Fellowships support early career published writers of fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction with a £10,000 cash bursary and a bespoke package of support and mentoring, generously funded by the Jerwood Foundation.
Hearts are Pounding
Hearts are Pounding is a joyously catchy song created by students at Callerton Academy, who set up their own production company West End Skies after taking part in our Young Writers’ City programme. We heard it first in their production, Lost Teenagers, performed at Northern Stage last spring. The group have since been nominated for a North East Culture Award and received funds from Sunday for Sammy to create a music video, which is now available to watch on YouTube.
Quay Street Productions Development Mentorship
We are delighted to be partnering with Quay Street Productions (Nolly, Men Up, After the Flood) to offer one emerging North East screenwriter a six-month paid mentorship. The selected writer will receive £2,500 and support from a mentor at Quay Street to develop an original TV idea and build their industry networks. Applications are open until 16 March to screenwriters based in Northumberland, County Durham, Tees Valley or Tyne and Wear, who have not yet had an original piece of writing produced for television.
Northern Writers' Awards
Get your Northern Writers’ Awards entries in before 10 March to win prizes including cash bursaries, writing retreats, manuscript appraisals, mentoring, and more:
- The Children's Books North Network Prize, for debut children's book illustrators.
- The Tees Valley Award, for fiction and narrative non-fiction writers ay any career stage, living in the Tees Valley.
- The Arvon Award, for prose writers at any career stage.
- The Finchale Award for Short Fiction, for writers at any career stage of a single, unpublished short story.
- The Northern Promise TLC Awards, for poets, prose writers and children's writers who may have faced barriers to seeing their work progress.
- The Northumbria University Student and Alumni Award, for current students and recent graduates of Northumbria University.
- The Sid Chaplin Award, for writers of fiction and narrative non-fiction from working-class backgrounds.
- The Tempest Prize, for unpublished LGBTQ+ writers.
The Announcement of the Gordon Burn Prize 2026
Next week, the winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2026 will be announced at a special ceremony at Newcastle’s Northern Stage. Join in person or online to hear readings and discussion from the shortlisted authors (Omar El Akkad, Sarah Hall, Elizabeth Lovatt, Maria Reva, Anthony Shapland, Morgan Talty), and a musical performance from Newcastle-based musician Richard Dawson, before the prize winner is announced!
Tees Valley Roadshow
We’re coming to The Forum Music Studios in Darlington on Saturday 28 February for an afternoon of insight into navigating the writing industries and applying for opportunities including the new Tees Valley Award. Hear advice from writers and editors Ashley Thorpe, Mike Edwards, HF Askwith, Jonny Aldridge and Shazia Altaf, followed by a Q&A.
Everything is... Romantasy
Romance and fantasy fans, come and discuss the new subgenre that’s exploded onto the scene! On Wednesday 18 March at Tyneside Cinema, we’ll be joined by romantasy authors Tasha Suri (The Isle in the Silver Sea, Empire of Sand) and H.F. Askwith (Half a Dark Heart, A Cruel Twist of Fate) to chat about why the world can’t get enough of enemies-to-lovers plots, dragon rider school settings, and seriously bold heroines.
Take part in our website survey
We would love your thoughts on the New Writing North website. Can you find what you want? Do you come to the website for inspiration or to find something specific? Whether you are an aspiring writer, someone who wants to try creative writing, or someone looking for reading recommendations or cultural events – we want to hear from you.
Please complete our short survey (less than five minutes) before 15 March and you could be in with a chance of winning a £50 National Book Token.
People, publishers, and podcasts
Congratulations to Teesside writer Jonny Aldridge, who was shortlisted for the 2026 RSL V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize for his story ‘Of Being Such a God’. It was described as “a wonderfully assured short story, full of fabulous detail freighted with menace and foreboding” by prize judge Kirsty Gunn.
2024 Northern Writers’ Award winner Roma Havers published their first poetry collection with Carcanet on 26 February. The Natural Way imagines new ways of thinking about what we call natural and the ways and paths we choose to get there.
Maya Jordan, a member of our first A Writing Chance cohort in 2021, has published her debut memoir with September Publishing, Chopsy: The Resistance Tales of a Working-Class Woman. It follows Maya’s journey through poverty, early motherhood, precarious housing, caring responsibilities and chronic disability, to finally seizing her right to write.
Living Well with Chronic Illness by Grace Quantock, another member of A Writing Chance in 2021, was originally published in the UK in September 2024 and is now being published in the US and Canada with Bloomsbury. Well done Grace!
Great news for Sheffield-based publisher and writer development agency The Poetry Business as one of their poets, Michael Laskey, has been awarded the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry for 2025. This medal, established in 1933, is awarded each year for excellence in poetry based on a poet’s entire body of work.
Hidden Men is an audio drama giving voice to the emotional, physical and often invisible labour of unpaid male carers through five interwoven monologues. It was created by Malcolm J Hogan, a multidisciplinary writer and creative from South Yorkshire, and it marks the beginning of Hidden Men CIC, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting unpaid male carers.
Doppelganger, a BBC-backed short produced in the North East with a predominantly Geordie cast and crew, is now streaming on iPlayer. This 13-minute comedy drama follows a woman finally confronting her lifelong rivalry with her doppelgänger, mixing humour with questions of identity and self-worth.
Competitions, awards, and submission opportunities
The Observer Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism invites new journalistic talent to submit a review up to 800 words of an exhibition, a live concert, a book, a broadcast, or any other artistic work. The top prize is £3,000 and publication in the Observer. Deadline 28 February.
Write Across Bradford, led by BBC Writers, is an eight-week development programme to support emerging television writers living in Bradford. It offers participants a range of craft and industry sessions with industry guests and networking opportunities. Deadline 10 March.
The MairtÃn Crawford Awards are open to writers working towards their first full collection of poetry, short stories, or a novel. The winner of each award will receive £500 cash and the opportunity to take up a 3-night stay in Belfast with access to a dedicated writing space. Deadline 11 March.
The Jane Gregory Bursaries offer three underrepresented writers a unique opportunity to attend the Creative Thursday writing day at the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on 23 July. The day features writing workshops, panel discussions and pitching sessions for aspiring crime writers. Deadline 22 March.
The new Gillian Smith Travel Writing Prize honours the late ArtsGroupie CIC Director and Co-Founder. Submit 500-1000 creative words which captures the essence of a place you have travelled to for the chance to win £300 cash and a 1-2-1 mentoring session with Fly on the Wall Press worth £200. Deadline 31 March.
The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize supports writers of fiction, poetry and life writing who have not yet published a book-length work by awarding winners in each category with a £1,000 cash prize and publication in Wasafiri magazine. Entry fee £12, with subsidised entries available. Deadline 30 June.
Freelance opportunities and jobs
English PEN is offering two five-day residencies for writers in the UK currently experiencing displacement. The residencies will take place between May and July 2026, during and after which the residents will write new short non-fiction to be published in PEN’s online magazine. Deadline 2 March.
Grimm & Co, a charity in Rotherham supporting children and young people with confidence and skills around creativity and writing, seeks a Marketing & Communications Coordinator and a Data Assistant. Deadline 2 March.
Barnsley Libraries Young Producers seeks an artist to run four creative workshops for young people in Penistone and to take part in a celebration event at the end of the project. These workshops can be any art form, but should be themed around Penistone. Deadline 2 March.
The Reader, the UK’s biggest shared reading charity, is looking for an Assistant Events Manager (Maternity Cover) to join the Events Team at the Calderstones site in Liverpool. The postholder will oversee delivery of programmed and private hire events. Deadline 2 March.
Professional writers with at least two books published and an aptitude for working with students are invited to apply to the Royal Literary Fund Fellowship scheme. RLF Fellows work two days a week from mid-September to mid-May to coach students and foster good writing. Deadline 20 March.
Workshops, courses, and events
In September 2026, the University of York is launching a new MA in Creative Writing. Over one year (full time) or two years (part time) you'll create your own pathway, either choosing to focus solely on different forms of creative practice or combining with picks from an enormous menu of practical, theoretical or critical modules.
Wasafiri’s International Translator in Residence, the Booker Prize-winning Deepa Bhasthi, continues the How to Be or Not Be a Translator workshop series with How to Translate with an Accent on 28 February and How to Write Like a Translator on 28 March. Both workshops are online with concessions available.
The Europeana Writers’ Room offers free online workshops each month using cultural heritage artworks and objects as writing prompts. On 4 March the theme will be creativity from uncertainty, and on 25 March the theme will be women in mythology. Write in any language, no experience necessary.
The Writers Workshop is bringing its Writers Day to Sheffield on 7 March for a full day of inspiration and information about the craft and business of writing. Choose your own selection of workshops and panels with industry guests, including a panel on Writing Identities that New Writing North is pleased to support.
This International Women’s Day, experience the premiere of a new stage-to-screen film by writer-director Zoe Murtagh and arts education company Changing Relations. A is for Amy explores toxic teen relationships and the power of friendship, and will premiere at Redhills Durham Miners’ Hall on 7 March.
Words by the Water Festival of Words and Ideas celebrates 25 years in Keswick at the Theatre by the Lake from 11-15 March. It will feature speakers including Lee Child, Tony Juniper, Brian Bilston, Penny Mordaunt, Prue Leith, Val McDermid, Andrew Miller and Mary Beard, plus eminent Cumbrian writers Sarah Hall and MW Craven.
Stalled in your writing? Move beyond prompt-share-repeat with a Language Awareness Workshop on Worldbuilding for Creative Writers. This online workshop led by Dr Susan Mandala takes place on 24 March and will focus on the language of fiction and a worldbuilding approach that goes beyond terrain, culture and lore.
Embark on a 2-day Nature Writing Masterclass with award-winning author, tutor and naturalist Mark Cocker. From 30 April – 1 May at Rothbury’s Hepple Estate, explore the deep links between words and wildlife through workshops, writing inspirations and guided estate tours.
If you have news that you would like to be considered for inclusion in the newsletter please contact carys@newwritingnorth.com. The deadline for receipt of information for the next newsletter is 23 March 2026.
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this newsletter is correct at the time of going to press, things do change, frequently at the last minute and very often without our knowledge.
