Last week's Flash: In the Dark competition was a huge success with some fantastic readings from entrants, guest performers Les Malheureux and our harbinger of horror - judge Ramsey Campbell.

We are pleased to announce the winners:

3rd place = Julie Hunter - Weak
2nd place = Neil Howard - Taking Tea with the Dead

and in 1st place (for the second year in a row!)
Karl A Russell - Your Turn

All entries can still be viewed online here

Read a review on Liverpool Confidential here
http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Arts/Writing-On-The-Wall-announce-fiction-winner

The entries selected by our judges for out Flash: In the Dark competition are back and we are pleased to announce the longlist. Congratulations to the below entrants:

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Under Pressure Festival dates: 1^st – 31^st May 2013

Writing on the Wall announces radical festival line up featuring:
 
Janet Street-Porter / Brian Reade / AL Kennedy / Howard Marks / Kevin Sampson / Bidisha / Helen Walsh / Rahila Gupta / Esther Wilson / John Burnside / Levi Tafari / Rita Ann Higgins / Bolshy / Dave Haslam / Peter Hooton…

Click here for full listings

Bedroom taxes, boardroom bonuses, foodbanks growing bigger than a banker’s wallet: The pressure is on in Aspiration Nation, but we’re all in it together, aren’t we? Writing on the Wall presents a radical programme featuring today’s best writers, ranters, artists, thinkers, commentators and activists, designed to challenge, provoke and inspire you to pick up your pen, change the world and…bake bread. We’ve got Rebels and Radicals, Port City Writers and Old-Fashioned Football Fans, Lockouts and Launches, some Nice Men and Billions of Women, Flashes of Horror, Circus Performers and Curious Stories, and word upon word upon word...all designed to help the pressure drop.

Fantastic news! Our next Rebel Ranter will be Janet Street-Porter, media personality, journalist and broadcaster, who will talk about why class still matters in our next Rebel Rant - A Class Act.
 
A Rebel Rant with Janet Street-Porter: A Class Act
Friday 3rd May, 7.30pm
Everyman Playhouse, Williamson Square, Liverpool, L1 1EL
£10.00/£8.00 concessions

Tickets available here.

Over the past few months, Writing on the Wall has been helping to curate In Other Words Festival, one of the UK’s biggest ever celebrations of literature and spoken word art, which will see the re-opening of Central Library, after a two year restoration. The festival will feature local, national and international writers, artists and performers.

James Herbert, Melvyn Bragg, Janet Street-Porter, Roger McGough and Brian Patten are just some of the top names at the In Other Words festival,a city-wide month-long celebration of the written and spoken word, curated by Culture Liverpool in partnership with Writing on the Wall, which marks the re-opening of Liverpool’s newly refurbished Central Library on Friday 17 May.
 
For further details of In Other Words Festival click here.

For more information and to book tickets for WoW events in the In Other Words Festival click here.

The United Kingdom, like other countries, is embarking on an unprecedented round of spending cuts. Talk of deficits, the national debt, quantitative easing and other economic terminology is presented to the public as evidence that there is a vital need for some of the most drastic public sector cuts we have ever faced.
 
In Who Needs the Cuts? Barry Kushner argues there is an alternative story that is not being told. There is a view of the economic events of the past five years that does not see the UK in debt crisis. It offers choice, differences of opinion, uncertainty and hope. It takes us on a different voyage, one beyond economics into politics and visions of society, our expectations and ambitions. Unfortunately, it’s a story that is been ignored in the face of phantom risks and delusional hopes.

Writing on the Wall is pleased to announce our first guest name in our WoW Festival 2013, in partnership with RISE, T.S. Eliot Prize Winner John Burnside! John will be performing alongside Rita Ann Higgins at HMP Liverpool and in the evening as part of the WoW Festival on 9th May, so put it in your diaries!

Writing on the Wall Festival will take place from 1st May to 31st May, stay tuned for more info.

Writing on the Wall wins Heritage Lottery Support for George Garrett Archive Project

Writing on the Wall are delighted to announce they have won the backing of the Heritage Lottery Fund to celebrate and preserve the legacy of the neglected Liverpool born writer, George Garrett (1896-1966)

George Garrett, Merchant Seaman, writer, playwright and founder member of Liverpool’s Unity Theatre, was a radical activist and a ‘militant advocate of tolerance’ who travelled the world and wrote a series of short stories and plays that led George Orwell, who he met and gave guidance and support to in his research for ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’, to say, 'I was very greatly impressed by Garrett. Had I known before that it is he who writes under the pseudonym of Matt Low in the Adelphi (a magazine published in the 1920's and 30's) and one or two other places, I would have taken steps to meet him earlier.' His importance in the literary 'canon' of working class literature is also supported by a leading scholar of working class writing, Professor John Lucas from Nottingham Trent University, who states that, 'Garrett is probably the most notable working-class writer of his time'.

Writing on the Wall
to help curate Liverpool City Council’s
‘In Other Words’ Literary Festival

 
Writing on the Wall have been invited to help curate the ‘In Other Words’ Festival, which will celebrate the reopening of the newly refurbished Central Library.

The festival, celebrating the written and spoken word will launch on Tuesday 23 April to coincide with World Book Night and will run until Sunday 19 May which marks the end of National Children’s Book Week.

Madeline Heneghan, Writing on the Wall Festival Director, says:

‘We are delighted to have been asked to help curate this festival and be associated with the reopening of the Central Library. We are already developing a programme featuring the best of Liverpool writing and work with the City Council to ensure communities across the city are engaged and represented in what should be a fabulous month.’

The annual Writing on the Wall Festival that traditionally runs throughout May will still take place, with events happening both within and outside of the ‘In Other Words’ Festival. This spring promises to bring a treat for all fans of writing and literature in Liverpool.
 
Arts organisations, businesses, community groups and schools are being called upon to get involved and support the festival. Anyone wishing to propose ideas for events can submit them by clicking here for the events form or going to www.liverpool.gov.uk/inotherwords and sending their idea in to the City Council by Monday 25 February.