Only a small little thing to be sure but an interesting example. Apparently working class writers don’t get a fair shake of the stick when trying to gain access to publishing opportunities. This likely to come as something of a surprise to both Rod Liddle and Julie Birchill. The answer to this - whether it be true or not - is that all must be taxed more in order to subsidise the production of more writing by working class people.
New public and private investment to support new publishing ventures outside of London, which will be bring publishing closer to broader audiences and generate more entry points to the industry for talent throughout the UK
Increased investment in regional writing development agencies, resulting in improved talent pipelines; fairer, more equitable talent development practices; and improved access to professional support and networks.
These insistences prompting a little bit of research. We didn’t know that there was a network of regional literature development agencies. A couple of million a year spent on the national coordinating bit:
Principal funding sources
The principal funding sources for the charity are currently by way of grant income from Arts Council England East, University of East Anglia, Norwich City Council and Norfolk County Council
The sort of spending subsidised? The SE arm had a conference on using the Writers and Artists Yearbook.
How to Get Published - a writers' conference in partnership with Bloomsbury's Writers & Artist Yearbook, the second of what has now become an annual conference for emerging writers in our region took place in Bristol in December. A third conference is planned for 2019/20.
An annual subscription to that database currently costs £25 and we’ve absolutely no doubt that some sort of bulk deal could be achieved by libraries thereby obviating the need for a conference on the issue.
It’s even possible that all of this is to be classed as a “nice to have” even if our own opinion is that the network exists to provide a living to those who tried writing and couldn’t hack it. Hack here in its proper English sense, turning out competent pieces that people wished to buy on time and on subject.
However, we’d also like to point out what current times entail. Reasonable estimates are that GDP could fall as much as 25% over this coronavirus period. That doesn’t mean just 25% less of “the economy” or that the rich will be hardest hit - although both are true. What it actually means is that we’ve got 25% less of everything for that’s what GDP is, the total value added in the entire economy. It doesn’t matter what we say about the Bank of England just printing more money 25% less of everything is still 25% less of everything.
We’re going to need to have 25% less government too that is. There being no point to salami slicing every budget by 25%, instead we’ve got to go through all of this with a fine toothed comb and kill off the 25% of government we shouldn’t be having in the first place. Regional literature development agencies being a useful litmus test. If they continue to exist as publicly funded bodies - what private economic actors decide to do with their money is up to them - then those who spend our money aren’t being serious.
Do note that we’re all in favour of regional literacy development promoters but we’ve another name for those, schools, and the task there is to ensure they do manage to encourage literacy along with that ‘rithmetic and so on.
It’s time to have a proper overhaul of what we’re taxed to provide. Overhaul in the sense of identifying those things which we shouldn’t be. Then killing them.