A Writing Chance: Reflections on the class ceiling
Eleven new writers on the barriers that divide Britain today – and how to break them
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Eleven new writers on the barriers that divide Britain today – and how to break them
ByGrowing up in inner-city London, I know that the fire was a manifestation of decades of systemic contempt for the…
ByI have a love-hate relationship with being northern.
ByWe all have aspirations. We must to reject the idea that certain opportunities are only for certain kinds of people.
ByI wrote in the silence, filled my children’s world with stories. But that was never “real writing” because people like me…
ByCan you make a 16-year-old, fresh off a weekend of cheap stimulants and Dutch techno, sit down on Monday morning…
ByIt was results day and the news was starting to sink in. I had passed my eleven-plus. My sister had…
ByThe government wants me to squeeze myself into a category, so it knows where I belong.
ByI didn’t need to be analysed – I needed to be fed.
ByOne of the UK’s largest remaining predators, with a reputation for cruelty and cunning: the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire Hunt’s two…
ByBut in the homophobic 1980s, this was no joke.
ByWhen I was just a snot-nosed kid, I failed my eleven-plus. And so, my life changed.
ByIn junior school they called me Nancy Clancy because I was a girly boy with a lisp. Fast forward 40…
BySenses like taste powerfully evoke memories that help us understand ourselves. For those of us on cultural margins, food can…
ByIf publishers fail to see the potential for all children to be magical heroes, then those who are excluded will…
ByWhen was the last time you really swore? It could be good for you.
ByTrying to talk to my grandmother in the supermarket was the first time I regretted being unable to speak Gujarati.
ByThe mess on my council estate winds me up. I can feel my eyes rolling, the tutting bursting on my…
ByAt what point does mishearing turn into a false memory? Do we hear and recall what we want to?
ByThanks to the limitations of my traditional Glaswegian bed recess, I’m looking for a partner strictly 5’ 9” or under.…
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