Chair’s Report
NAWE NEWS
After two years of COVID and lockdown and now the problems we are about to face with the impact it has had on lives, we are aware the world continues to turn in ways which continue to challenge us. Only a couple of weeks ago, a couple of young Ukrainians who have come to stay for a wee while, presented me with a copy of this: It’s a book by Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko also known as Kobzar, a nineteenth century Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure. Extraordinary that they should bring a book of poetry as a celebration of their culture, and yet not so strange because poetry, writing, crosses borders in that common language we all of us at NAWE understand. We live in an often troubled world and one of the things that holds us together is the work of writers, you, all of us, who remember the past, live and write in the present for the future. Long may all of you continue to do so; writers are the chroniclers of today for tomorrow. Since taking over as Chair from Jonathan Davidson at the AGM in November 2021, I have come to realise NAWE’s role in supporting our members as writers in education. But at the same time, I have also become aware of the hard work being carried out on your behalf. We recently held the 2022 Conference, Renewal & Resilience and I was astonished at the sheer effort of everyone in the team, Serpahima Kennedy, Fiona Mason, Sophie Flood, Philippa Johnston and Lisa Koning. But a special mention must go to Seraphima because she is the without whom in the conference equation. This was my first conference as Chair and seeing behind the scenes too was an eye opener. The title itself, Renewal & Resilience was inspired because of the troubled couple of years we have all endured but continue to be resilient as we move into a new era. Having chaired the session on Know your Rights with Nicola Solomon (Society of Authors) and Lesley Gannon (Writers’ Guild of Great Britain), I realised that we had NAWE, the Society of Authors and the Writers’ Guild all in one room together. This took foresight, thought and persuasion by Seraphima to make happen. But then the UK Arts Councils Literature Panel brought Sarah Crown (ACE), Paul McVeigh (ACNI), Lleucu Siencyn (Literature Wales) and Alan Bett (Creative Scotland) to the same conference table for the second year running, and this was a real coup. It reveals the strength of NAWE in the national debates. That’s when I began to realise the great deal of care and attention that goes into the conference preparation. From the plenary panels like Poetics of Home with Sarah Howe, Nina Mingya Powles, Jenny Wong and Jinhao Xie; Making Literature Events Accessible with Hannah Hodgson and Kim Moore; Whose Playing Field? Creating an Inclusive Literary Culture that Works for all Writers with Sharmilla Beezmohun, Nathalie Teitler and Rishi Dastidar, and of course our special guests, Hannah Lowe and Thomas Glave; the conference sessions were inspired, thank you everyone. It really was an absolutely superb event. Being behind the scenes to witness how this evolved helped me to understand the role NAWE plays on behalf of its members. We are distinct and different in many ways, with our specific brief for ‘writers in education’, but we are very much an important and vital part of the writing community. Many things are happening right now to ensure the success of NAWE; issues from funding to the next conference continue to occupy the team. And a question arose; did everyone like the conference being in the Spring? We would love to know so don’t be shy in saying. Also don’t be shy in letting me know of any innovations, ideas and thoughts you might have. NAWE is your organisation and we do our best to accommodate that idea. Stay safe and stay well everyone. We are now into Spring and summer beckons. Andrew Melrose, Chair NAWE
Writing in Education 5
