Introduction

As the home of Bede, the Brontës, Wordsworth, and the current Poet Laureate, the North of England has strong literary credentials and is recognised for its writing culture, whether that’s Manchester as a UNESCO City of Literature, the BBC adaptation of Benjamin Myers’ The Gallows Pole profiling Calderdale, or Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley taking the UK and US by storm. There is much to celebrate about the North’s literary past and creative future – especially the wider economic impact of place-based media production generated from the work of the region’s writers.  

The uplift in investment in literature in the North by Arts Council England in the 2023 NPO funding round demonstrates that the literature story of the North is still very much evolving, and the region is breaking new ground when it comes to attracting and developing new literature organisations and ideas.  

The wider North is home to a host of excellent and innovative independent publishers including Bluemoose Books, Dead Ink Books, Saraband, And Other Stories, and Leeds- based Peepal Tree Press who publish authors from the region alongside an international catalogue of work.  

The North is also nationally significant for poetry. It is home to two leading publishers of the form: Bloodaxe Books in Northumberland and Carcanet in Manchester. The recent opening of the Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Metropolitan University adds weight to its poetry profile, alongside existing centres of excellence such as Dove Cottage in the Lake District, and Leeds’ vibrant spoken-word scene. The M62 corridor supports a great deal of creative traffic between Manchester and Leeds for poets and poetry, providing a potential dynamic relationship to be nurtured.