Literature Festival receives grant

Wordquake, East Riding Libraries’ enhanced literature development project, has secured over £94,000 from Arts Council England towards the development of Beverley Literature Festival and Bridlington Poetry Festival and its extensive outreach programme.

This major grant from Grants for the Arts (Libraries Fund) will help many more East Riding communities benefit from creative projects that enhance lives and improve life chances. The outreach programme will encourage more people to engage with reading, creative writing and live literature and will enable Wordquake to promote the library service and its resources more effectively.

The funding supports the festival programme for just under two years, enabling Wordquake to deliver four high-quality literature festivals: Beverley Literature Festival in 2014 and 2015 and Bridlington Poetry Festival in 2014 and 2015.

Dorcas Taylor, director of Wordquake, said: “I am delighted that we have secured this funding from Arts Council England. It shows that we are making a significant contribution to the cultural life of the East Riding”.

Dorcas added: “Our literature festivals are recognised by many as two of the best in the country, and visiting authors and performers take an excellent impression of the East Riding away with them. This funding will help us make our festivals even better."

Funding will also support a new innovative outreach strand, the Festival on the Run, which takes the festivals out into more isolated and rural communities. First off will be a project with one of the UK’s leading playwrights, John Godber, who has been commissioned to write a play which will tour libraries in the autumn.

Dorcas Taylor continued: “We are really pleased to have John Godber on board. It shows how ambitious we are in wanting to develop high quality projects for our local communities that are cutting-edge and accessible. These projects have been developed to help people get more involved in our work, particularly people who might not find live literature events easy to relate to. We always try to find out what might interest them as a starting point, and take it from there. That’s why they have been a success so far."

Councillor Richard Burton, portfolio holder for civic wellbeing and culture, said:” This grant from Arts Council England is truly exciting news for arts and culture in the East Riding, and I would like to thank our council team who worked tirelessly to secure this funding, and of course I would like to express my gratitude to Arts Council England.

“I am delighted that we will be able to continue to put on these superb Festivals, and I look forward to being able to develop ever more innovative and inclusive programmes for both events, and especially the Festival on the Run.”