A Writing Chance: Adjusting the Lens - Phase One Evaluation Report

Representation matters. The media and publishing frame how we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us. The best writing can show us who we are by shining a light on untold stories and experiences, illuminating truths and bringing injustices and structural inequalities into focus. But research tells us that the people writing and setting the agenda do so through a relatively narrow prism of experience. If we can open up the industry, we can all benefit from a richer culture, a better understanding of each other, and more equal representation.
A Writing Chance was launched in June 2021 as an innovative talent development programme open to new and aspiring writers from working-class backgrounds. The programme aimed to offer a positive intervention. It was designed to discover new talent, and to support new writers from working-class backgrounds to break into the creative industries. It also supported publishers and editors to make space for a broader range of perspectives in their publications.
The programme is the product of an ambitious new cross-sector collaboration between industry and the arts, higher education, and the third sector. Levering networks, resources, experiences and capacity, A Writing Chance created a new partnership model by combining different organisations and perspectives to tackle a shared challenge.
This report outlines the origin story of the programme, and its activities and impacts from launch to publication. It offers recommendations on how we can take the learning from this work forward to offer others the writing chance that is needed now more than ever.
A Writing Chance is designed to support positive change in the industry and to ignite interest in how better to enable access to writing as a career for a wider range of people . If you work in the writing industries and are inspired by this report, please get in touch via the website at AWritingChance.co.uk and join our growing body of cross-sectoral supporters to help create opportunity and widen representation for the writers of tomorrow.