Why Nottingham Should Be Crowned UNESCO City of Literature

Nottingham’s Stories
We were recently awarded funding from the Arts Council to run a City Read and Write project. We’ve had City Reads before in Nottingham, but this one is different. A book of seven short stories by Nottingham writers (These Seven) will be published in June, and the writers will visit community groups to encourage everyone to read it and write their own stories, which will be published on a website. We’re hoping to run a bigger version of this project next year.

Explore Nottinghamshire Writers
We’re working with the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham to build a web app which maps Nottinghamshire’s historical and contemporary literature, linking it to the stories of Notts writers and the locations where they lived and wrote, and enabling readers, writers and visitors to interact with those locations and record those interactions on the website. This will also link to a book to be published later this year by Five Leaves.

Transcontinental Reading Groups
A pilot group was set up recently, using Facebook to link readers in Nottingham and Kolkata to discuss Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe and The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. This model will be rolled out to link Nottingham with other cities across the world over the next few months.

Nottingham Festival of Words
The inaugural festival in 2013 showcased all the great literature-related activities happening in the area, featuring many of our contemporary writers. Last year we widened the range of events to include writers from around the world, taking over Market Square for a spectacular final Saturday. 2015 will bring in more big names, more influential writers, and more activities for residents and visitors alike.

NEAT16
Nottingham Playhouse’s festival of European Arts and Theatre has received international coverage and recognition. In 2016 it will focus on work that celebrates Nottingham’s literary heritage, and literature from across Europe and the world. Attracting projected audiences of nearly 50,000 in total, the festival will commission work from around 300 writers and artists.

Dawn of the Unread
This is an interactive graphic novel made up of sixteen comics which explore Nottinghamshire’s writers, libraries and readers. Comics are released monthly, each is written and illustrated by different writers and readers, bringing back to life a local writer from our history. The project has reached every school and college in the region, and won The Guardian’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2015.

Rebel Writers’ Trail
You won’t have missed the huge Rebel Writers poster on Station Street, featuring Lawrence, Byron and Sillitoe. The City Council is working with the Alan Sillitoe Committee and the Howie Smith Project to create a trail of twelve significant places relevant to these writers across the city centre, each marked with a plaque and information board. Maps of the trail will also be produced, with further information and links to other resources.

Small Steps Big Changes
SSBC is Nottingham’s ten-year Big Lottery-funded programme to improve the lives of 0–3 year olds across the city. The City Council, health care providers, voluntary and community organisations will work together on a range of programmes, one of which will be to bring the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to these children – giving each child one book every month from birth until their fifth birthday.