Uncovering Leicestershire's hidden literary talent

Dr Corinne Fowler is an author and a lecturer at the University of Leicester's School of English.

She is also the lead person behind Grassroutes: Contemporary Leicestershire Writing, a project which aims to raise public awareness of Leicestershire’s diverse literary culture and foster local, national and international critical recognition for the writing.

The project is being supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and will deliver its aims by summer 2012 through five main outputs, namely:
Dr Fowler was encouraged by recent studies on Britain’s writing, as well as her own research, which revealed a great imbalance between London and regional writers’ readerships, fuelled by prevailing readers’ perceptions of regional black and ethnic minority writers.

“Recent research suggests that our publishing industry distorts our sense of Britain’s literary landscape. Not only this, but that Black, Chinese and Asian writers outside London struggle to achieve literary recognition or gain access to wide readerships,” she said.

Professor Martin Halliwell, Head of the University of Leicester's School of English commented:
Grassroutes is a fantastic project that will showcase the many literary talents in Leicestershire.
Dr Corinne Fowler is collaborating with a wide range of regional organisations to develop a visible forum for transcultural writing in the East Midlands.
The regional organisations that have partnered with Grassroutes include The Asian Writer; Charnwood Arts; the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research at Lancaster University; Embrace Arts at the University of Leicester; the Leicester Library Service; the Literature Network; Mainstream Partnership; Short Fuse Fiction; Word!; and, Writing East Midlands.

"We are really excited that this project will be directed through the School of English. It will be a major resource for both new and established writers and will be of significant benefit to the writing community across and beyond the UK," Dr Halliwell said.

For more information, please contact Dr Corinne Fowler or visit the Grassroutes website.

Related projects:

Possibly related books:

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