Write About...
Write About... My Manchester
A new project from the Write About... Group to develop writing about "My Manchester". How you came to be in Manchester; your first thoughts on coming to Manchester; what do you think of Manchester now; do you have any special stories to tell about Manchester; what would you say to someone who is thinking of coming to live in Manchester? We are planning to produce a magazine at the end of this project with contributions from a range of community and college-based writing groups.
How you can participate
We have produced a set of teaching resources to develop writing around this theme. Please contact us at writeabout@gatehousebooks.com for details. Of course your own project doesn't have to be about Manchester. It can be about your own city, town, college or school for example. Skills for Life practitioners and tutors can participate in this project by encouraging students to write about their own experiences. We are providing a writing frame to guide new writers.
Who are we?
We are a group of tutors and mentors with experience of working with young people and adults who find themselves on the fringes of society. We work in a variety of adult education and community situations, including outreach work with the homeless. We are working with publisher Gatehouse Media, which specialises in publishing books written by and for adults who are developing their literacy skills.
Write About... is a voluntary initiative established to promote writing, by ordinary people, about social issues which have impacted on their lives, and to publish collections of the most inspiring writing as Easy-Readers, which aim to help adults in basic skills education to come to terms with their own experiences and to overcome their personal barriers to education. Write About… aims to focus on individual social issues on a project-by-project basis, to encourage ordinary people to write about experiences which have impacted on their lives.
Our first project, Write About…Bullying, focused on the issue of bullying from the perspective of the victim. We encouraged people to write about their experiences as victims of bullying in all contexts e.g. at school, at home, in the workplace, cyber-bullying etc. The project provided an opportunity for participants to express themselves and to help others who are currently experiencing bullying, and linked to established support organisations operating in the field. The Write About...Bullying collection is now available.
Our second project, Write About… Inspiring People, has resulted in an inspiring collection of writing and images now available as an e-book on CD-Rom.
For more details about the Write About… project, please contact Bernie, project coordinator, at writeabout@gatehousebooks.com.
