About

THIRTY WOMEN, THREE LIBRARIES, COUNTLESS STORIES...

Rural Writes is the name of a project to encourage women of all ages in Watton, Swaffham and the Magdalen Estate in Gorleston to write about their experiences of living in rural and coastal communities. 

Thirty women are attending 10 weeks of free creative writing workshops led by two professional writers after Norfolk's Library and Information Service received funding from Arts Council England.

Our aim is to create a bold, honest and vivid narrative of lives lived in the landscape in an anthology published by independent press, Unthank Books. The collection of life-writing will be available to borrow from all Norfolk's libraries and to buy. 

The project is led by Belona Greenwood, co-organiser of Words and Women which supports and celebrates women writers in the East of England and a winner of the Decibel/Penguin prize for Life-Writing alongside award-winning poet Heidi Williamson, a former Swaffham girl whose latest collection of poetry, The Print Museum, has just been launched by Bloodaxe Books.  The anthology will be illustrated by local artist Rose Cowan and edited by novelist Lynne Bryan, and the other half of Words and Women. The project is managed by Anna Brett of Create Projects.  

Rural Writes would simply not be possible without the unstinting support of Norfolk Library and Information Service and the community librarians who are energetically engaged in the project and provide digital and computer skills support to those whose only idea of a mouse is of the furred kind.

This blog is part of the project, it is a place where women from all three groups can post their writing.  It is an opportunity to provide a platform from the writing generated on the course and a way of bringing the women in the groups together and uniting them in common purpose, not only the creation of an amazing book but also a platform to make women's experience of living in rural or coastal areas known. 

www.wordsandwomen.blogspot.co.uk