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All words - no action
Aug 30 2004
By Shahid Naqvi, Birmingham Post
A plan to establish Birmingham as the creative writing capital of Britain with a national academy is floundering because of lack of funding.
The National Academy of Writing, which is backed by some of the countrys leading authors, was expected to discover and nurture tomorrows great literary talent.
Its backers envisaged postgraduate courses, glittering literary events and regular writers workshops.
But despite moving into donated new premises in January, the two-year-old venture, which has writer and broadcaster Lord Melvin Bragg as its president, is currently not running a single course.
It received a further setback recently when the Birmingham Learning and Skills Council (LSC) decided to cut its funding, believed to have amounted to £100,000 for 2003/04.
Academy chairman Barry Turner called on private businesses, philanthropists and the public sector to help to prevent the city missing out on a major cultural opportunity.
The problem we have got is the demand for what we are doing is overwhelming, but in order to do it we have to have additional funding, he said.
We have one big sponsor, who doesnt want to be mentioned, who is covering all the administrative costs, but if it wasnt for that we would be out the window.
A one-week novel clinic for second-time authors, which attracted eight students, has just finished.
Projects struggling to get off the ground due to a lack of funding include setting up a one-year graduate diploma in creative writing and a mentoring scheme to pair aspiring writers with established authors.
Mr Turner said: In one sense we have this marvellous programme, but getting the money together is a huge problem.
He called for more support from local organisations after a menu of sponsorship opportunities circulated around the country gained hardly any response outside London.
In a city that quite rightly prides itself on a massive cultural revival, I think we might get a bit more of a look-in here, he said.
The academy is supported by 100 of the countrys leading authors, including Nick Hornby, Ian Rankin and Iain Banks.
Originally based at the University of Central England, it found itself at risk of being without a home last year when the contract came to an end.
At the time, Birmingham-based Whitbread Prize winner Jim Crace claimed the city council had fumbled the project and risked squandering a major asset to the failed 2008 European City of Culture bid.
After the academys plight was highlighted by The Birmingham Post, Britains largest private estate, Calthorpe, stepped in and donated rent-free space in Calthorpe House at Five Ways.
Last year the academy was able to run a few courses in screen-writing, fiction writing and poetry paid for by one-off sponsorships.
But Mr Turner said: We need long-term funding to get the courses up and running. We want to establish an Academy of Writing comparable with RADA or LAMDA in arts and music, but based in Birmingham.
We dont kid ourselves it will take millions of pounds. It is going to be a slow process.
The Birmingham and Solihull LSC, which funds all-post 16 education outside universities, said: We decided, with regret, to discontinue funding this year because our budgets have been much tighter which has required us to focus on our core priorities in schools and colleges and in work-based learning.
