Northern Voices
There's a new opportunity from us (along with several screen agencies) for writers in the North of England.
The short of it: If you've had a script commissioned or a professional reading of your work, and you live in the North of England, you're eligible. They want to see a sample of your work, and a pitch for the TV Drama you'd like to develop. Successful applicants then get a mentor, a small bursary, and the time to develop their idea into a full script over several drafts.
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What a shame I'm from the North but now live in the Midlands. Wish there was a similar scheme in this area.
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I live in the Midlands too, and there are never any opportunities just for us. It's North this and North that. Discrimination, pure and simple. ;)
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I'm just waiting for Southern, or London, Voices (will probably never happen though)! I guess the reasoning behind this scheme is that Northern writers suppoedly don't get the chances people in say, the South East supposedly get (and which I've not experienced or seen any evidence of), but really, in a time when the airwaves are ruled over by writers like Paul Abbott, Jimmy McGovern, Peter Bowker, Tony Jordan and even Russell T. Davies (yes, I know he's Welsh, but given how the vast majority of his TV writing career has been spent in the North, on Northern-based shows and with Northern production companies, he's surely an honorary Northerner) is that really even the case? If anything, I'd say being a Northerner's a bit of an advantage when it comes to getting into TV writing.
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Bloody hell!
Whinge, whinge, whinge!
The amount of opportunities for new writers in every bloody part of the UK is incredible - try living in Ireland, then you might have my sympathies...
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If you're complaining that things are worse in Ireland than in the UK, then aren't you guilty of 'whinging' yourself? The point I was making is that this kind of localised scheme seems pretty divisive and apparently set up to deal with inequalities that in my opinion don't actually exist in the TV industry nowadays.
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All of these were mentioned in our Opportunities page within the last year, and there were many more opportunities presented there which were not restricted to the North of England.
Please do keep an eye out on the opportunities page. If you can't find the time to visit that regularly, we even have an RSS Feed which is updated every time a new opportunity is added to the site.
We will let you know as soon as we can of any writing opportunity we find out about, no matter where it is in the country.
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Yeah, but what about Cromer? They don't even make drama here.
:)
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Yeah, there are a few schemes out there for writers in the regions but not particularly many in the TV industry. It's a shame each BBC region doesn't run similar programmes to find local writers.
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@MisterP
Yes, but look at all the colour in Cromer! I believe there's a local loony who wanders the streets dressed as a lord talking to complete strangers about a serial killer book he wrote! :)
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Cromer?
Isn't that based in a universe made entirely from anti-matter?
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LOL.
You are both right and actually I live in Sheringham, Cromer was just a bit of artistic license. And I think you will find young Aspie that is now books! Plural dear boy, plural. :)
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@ Neo-Noir, yes you are totally right, I AM whinging!
My point is that I have more cause to whinge, because compared to the UK there are few to none similar opportunities available in Ireland, and I’m not just referring to Writersroom, which is a fantastic facility, I am also alluding to the fact that there are so many regional film bodies (such as South-West Screen), MA courses in both TV and film, Skillset courses, TAPS, not to mention regular comps runs by theatre companies and independent production companies.
So all I'm saying is, with respect, for that reason it seems odd to be commenting about being excluded by ‘divisive’ regional schemes when for the most part you don’t have to look very hard to find something juicy either course-wise or competition-wise in your area, regardless of where you are in the UK.
@ Piers, yes the Tony Doyle Bursary is a great opportunity for Irish writers, but it only runs every two years, so perhaps in the future the BBC may look at making it an annual event? The only other recent opportunity available for ‘new writers’ here was RTE’s Storyland, which was nigh on impossible to enter unless you were already affiliated to a production company.
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@ Serronah - a lot of the UK comps are also open to Irish writers, and the Irish Writers Guild puts up any opps on its website whenever they come up. Have a look there.
@ Mister P - every day is a drama in Sheringham...
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Sheringham? Is that anywhere near Midsomer?
Mrs M
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Let's hope not, for Mister P's sake.
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Sheringham is actually set in 1953.
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But, you have a seperate 'Writersroom North'. What about a 'Writersroom South West' or 'Writersroom Wales'?
I understand that you try to be as fair as possible (after all it is our money that funds all of these competitions, and the Writersroom itself), but it is does seem that competitions and schemes do, on the whole, come up more often in some areas than in others. Who audits exactly how much of the Writersroom money goes to which areas? Of course, I know it's more complicated than that (with the involvement of various screen agencies etc.), but it would be good to be reassured that opportunities are distributed fairly around the U.K.
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I don't really understand how this is an opportunity for genuinely green writers. If you've already had an idea commissioned then why exactly do you need this too?
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moiphx2: This isn't an opportunity for genuinely green writers. Having your first commission is just the beginning of a long hard slog towards making a living from writing - so we also try to help writers who've already made the first few steps, as well as those who haven't yet been commissioned for anything.
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blabberblogger - Writersroom North is as such because we have a Project Manager based in Manchester who works across the north, from Merseyside to East Yorkshire, Northumberland and Cumbria. This came about a number of years ago due to the, at the time, very London-centric nature of commissioning and development, and because the north is a very long way for us to travel on a regular basis to run projects. It is also because there was a real desire in theatres and elsewhere across the north to push new-writing. Plus now there will be a large BBC production shift to Manchester.
Northern Voices has come out of a strong, proactive desire in those Screen Agencies to run this kind of project. This doesn't mean we don't run projects in other regions, whether with Screen Agencies, theatres or otherwise. We helped run the Tony Doyle Award and have run various projects/schemes with BBC Northern Ireland over the last year or so. We are involved with the Scotland Writes opportunity in Scotland at the moment. Piers has mentioned some other opportunities. We run targeted opportunities in the regions all the time - but these are not advertised because they are not open-submission calls.
We're a very small team and we do what we can, where we can, and when there's a will and a way to do so with partners and BBC production bases around the UK.
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Surely, any opportunity for your fellow writers is positive, where-ever they live. The world is a village, so lets create a community of story tellers. Please enjoy the learning journey and lets help each other along this exciting path we have chosen to walk down.
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