This past year we have been working with local school children and community groups to create a magazine celebrating the history of Cramlington. The project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and involved over 180 people. Memories were captured and stories were shared, local ‘community diamonds’ were interviewed while celebrating the town’s 60th birthday. We were asked to create this body of work by Cramlington Town Council who supported us every step of the way.

To access the online version of this magazine please CLICK HERE.

As December is fast approaching, it only seems right we launch our Winter Writing Competition. Having had almost one thousand entries last year we expect to surpass that number this year and our judging elves are at the ready. The focus this year is on the place where we live. For anyone interested, please contact [email protected].

In 2022 I was invited back to my primary school in Whitehaven, Cumbria, where my writing journey started. The school was celebrating its 70th birthday and the new Head Teacher was keen to create a collection of stories to commemorate the history of the school and the students over the years.

For me, it was an absolute pleasure to return to my home-town and the school where I spent the first eight years of my life, to work with the students and staff on the project. We were fortunate to receive funding from the Well Whitehaven fund in conjunction with Cumbria Council to create the project and print copies for the local community.

Huge thanks goes to our team of volunteers who supported the students with their writing and gave up their time to be interviewed and lead workshops in creating the magazine which you can read here.

This right here is the epitome of job satisfaction. I provided a reference for a young woman I started working with at Bringing Words to Life when she was ten years old.

Having soared higher than she possibly ever thought she would, Lauren passed her GCSEs and A Levels easily. She went on to secure a first from Durham University and just completed her Masters’s in Journalism. Dedicated, determined and dynamic are only a few adjectives that can be applied to Lauren and her passion for the written word and the craft of journalism.

An honour to see her move on to the next chapter of what we know here at BWtL will be an illustrious career. Congrats Lauren White. You worked hard for this.

Earlier this month we welcomed two students to the team at Bringing Words to Life from Ponteland High School and Thorp Academy. Both were keen to secure experience in the world of media and jumped at the opportunity to create content for the Beep website.

Here at Bringing Words to Life, we pride ourselves on being able to offer young people the opportunity to develop their skills and love for writing through our projects. Beep was established for those reasons only. We identified that there was a lack of provision for students who wanted to write outside school. So we took it upon ourselves to create a platform where writers and content creators could experiment and hone in on their ideas while being able to promote their work and contributions on their UCAS forms and CVS.

So, welcoming Holly and Bethan for a week where they contributed informative and hugely entertaining content for the site was a great feeling for us. Beep was set up for young people just like them, to nurture their writing skills and use their opinions to educate their peers. The opportunity to experience life as one of the Beep/Bringing Words to Life team is open to any young person. For more information on this opportunity contact [email protected].

For some of the content Holly and Bethan created, follow the links below.

Five Women in History Robbed of their Legacy

Awaiting Exam Results and how to Enjoy the Summer

The Assassination of Harvey Milk

Book Review: Song of Achilles

You may have thought we had disappeared off the face of the earth, as we have been super-quiet lately. But fear not, we are still here. We have been working hard behind the scenes at BWTL to develop one of our writing programmes to make it much more accessible.

Write2 is a culmination of the Beep programme and our Press Pack workshops. Covid, like for many other organisations, had a significant impact on our work. Not being able to visit schools like we usually would, meant we had to consider how we could ensure the work we were accustomed to doing in person could continue.

We know the benefits of our programme. We understand how those who took part in the workshops enjoyed and recognised the differences in themselves from their involvement in the programme. It was, therefore, up to us to develop the programme to enable others to deliver it rather than our staff, while ensuring young people continue to benefit from what has been created over the past decade.

To find out about Write2 and how it might benefit your school, college or young people you might work with please refer to this information and contact [email protected] if you are interested in purchasing Write2 for your learners or young writers.

We are delighted to be running our fourth annual Writing Competition this year for primary aged students. After the success of the competition last year that saw hundreds of amazing poems from around the region, we decided to keep with the Winter theme, this year asking our junior writers to write about the perfect place to be in winter and what makes that place so special. Entries need to be submitted to us by December 6th for certificates and prizes to be distributed by December 15th. If you have any interest in this competition for your school or for your child, please contact [email protected]

Make sure you check out the Beep app. Now available for both Android and IOS. Check below for a guide on how to install the application.

We would love to read your stories inspired by this writing prompt – the best ones could even be featured on our website

We all ask them, some of more than others. More often than not, learning something from the responses we get. I love asking questions and finding out about people and things, possibly why I enjoyed interviewing so much. During my career as a journalist, I asked thousands of questions to music artists and professionals, immersed in all genres and aspects of the music industry. I would spend hours researching the people I would be talking to, even if I was very familiar with them and their work or achievements. Even if I was their biggest fan, I quickly realised, you can never know too much about someone or something.

One of the key points to asking questions that a person will respond to is ensuring they are relevant. Asking the right questions means you get the information you require – it really is that simple. You may need to placate the information out of your interviewee with several feeder questions, but putting yourself in their shoes and asking questions you feel that you yourself would respond to, is a great starting point.

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