A belta for the Lit & Phil
Nick Jones brings some good literary news from Newcastle
I'M WITH my geordie friend Marra, outside the Lit & Phil in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, close by Central Station.
Founded in 1793, the Literary and Philosophical Society and its library opened in 1825. A place of learning, enlightenment, interest and pleasure, well before universities arrived on Tyneside. So it's timely that we're discussing the value and meaning of words, both spoken and written.
There's good news too. The Lit & Phil is going to be joined, right next door, by a new Centre for Writing, thanks to £5m government funding. All part of Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy's commitment to the arts and the creative industries as a key player in economic growth including, here in the north-east, support for Crown Works, a £450 million film studio, and £5m for the National Glass Centre, both in Sunderland.
Kim McGuinness, North East Mayor, Claire Malcolm, CEO New Writing North, Cllr Karen Kilgour, leader of Newcastle City Council Credit: The Bigger Picture
DCMS funding for the new Centre for Writing should unlock a further £10m from trusts and foundations, corporate partnerships, the National Lottery and individuals, enabling it to build on existing partnerships with the BBC, Channel 4, Film4, Audible, Substack and Hachette Book Group.
Other major publishers are getting involved too, including Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster.
The Centre will be based in Bolbec Hall, built in 1907, and named after the eponymous town in Normandy; a timely reminder of our continental origins! Currently empty, the seven story building will be home to the Centre for Writing, run by New Writing North in partnership with Northumbria University.
NWN has a great track record for setting aspiring writers on the road to success, like Gateshead-born Peter Straughan, who's just won the 2025 Golden Globe for best screenplay for the film "Conclave", based on the novel by Robert Harris.
Claire Malcolm, NWN's Chief Executive, explains that "The centre will provide an opportunity to expand our work with communities in the region and with brilliant northern talent. It will bring writers and readers together in a space which celebrates the power of storytelling."
There will be workshops, courses and opportunities for writers to get advice, support, and access to networks as well as contacts including agents and publishers. Wide-ranging community projects and their award-winning programme for young writers will expand – it already reaches over 2,000 young people in schools and communities each year.
Marra's explaining that hunter-gathering tribes didn't need written words, as life was simple back then, so they could just speak, or, importantly, sing, to each other, or together; warnings, information, emotions, memories, stories, beliefs.
The oldest human traces, discovered in Indonesian caves, and over 40,000 years old, are images, not words. Next came hieroglyphs, shorthand symbols, for example a zig-zag meaning water. Inscriptions, aka human phonetic script, are even more recent. Arabic, Greek and Roman alphabets derive from the world's earliest pictographic-consonantal alphabet found in Sinai around 3,000 years ago.
Writing and mathematics, and the knowledge they embody, were essential tools of power; ideal to control and administer empires. For centuries, fortunately for the powerful, few could read, let alone write. Scripture was restricted to holy texts, like the 8th Century Lindisfarne Gospels, expensive in parchment and inks, and requiring specialist skills.
Then, in the 15th Century, Gutenberg's invention of printing set knowledge (and fake news) free, allowing the hoi-poloi to express themselves, and risking dangerous subversion. In "The CIA Book Club", for example, Charlie English tells how ten million books, smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, demonstrated the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation.
No surprise that rulers have always tried their best to do their worst. Books make easy targets, given that paper is so combustible. In 213 BC. Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang burnt books to consolidate his power. Libraries that went up in smoke include Alexandria (48 BC, 385AD, 297 AD, take your pick); the US Library of Congress (1812) ; and the Jaffna in Sri Lanka (1992). It's a long list!
Allegedly, at Sellafield, instructions for dealing with long-term nuclear waste are written on parchment. Maybe they should be carved in stone too? But will anyone understand the language? Or will written communication have gone full circle by then, back to symbols and emojis? Or will AI have invaded our brains so comprehensively that no "body" will need to know nothing no more - nowt, nada, zilch? No-brainer or what?!
Marra's playing devil's advocate now. "Writing? That's not so much last year, more last century. Who needs it when we have screens?". I explain, patiently, how, without writers, there'd be no authors, screenwriters, playwrights, and that means no novels, plays, TV drama, films, publishers, music, theatre, media, gaming, advertising jargon, academia, or bookshops.
Less creative economic development too. Which is why Newcastle City Council's "Creative Central NCL" initiative is making a place for independent artists, creative professionals and cultural organisations to thrive, as well as attracting new businesses, and more visitors.
"So, Marra, will it work?" I ask.
"Wey aye man. It's a belta. Canny as oot!"
https://newwritingnorth.com
NICK JONES
