YOUNG & TALENTED CORNWALL AWARDED ARTS COUNCIL NATIONAL LOTTERY GRANT

Young & Talented Cornwall, The Lord Lieutenant’s Fund has been awarded £15,170 through the Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants for its new Creative Writing Award.  The grant was announced by Darren Henley, Chief Executive Arts Council England at a recent presentation evening at St Austell Brewery.

This brand-new creative writing award, initiated by Falmouth University and Seasalt Cornwall, gives budding young writers in Cornwall the chance to kick-start their careers and achieve their writing dreams.  Successful applicants are matched with an established Cornwall-based writer for invaluable mentorship, expert advice and guidance. As well as this significant mentorship opportunity, recipients will also be granted up to £1,000 to be spent on moving their writing career forward, together with a reading award of £150 worth of books.  The Arts Council grant will increase the level of valuable mentoring support available to Cornwall’s young writers.

The Creative Writing Award is the latest initiative of Young & Talented Cornwall, The Lord Lieutenant’s Fund which since 2005 has provided grants worth more than £350,000 to Cornwall’s next generation of superstars. Young & Talented Cornwall helps young talents who otherwise lack the means to achieve their potential across a wide range of skill areas, from sports and performing arts to music and art.  With the support of the Award Curator, the Cornish author Philip Marsden, Falmouth University and Seasalt Cornwall, the Creative Writing Award is specifically dedicated to the written word and Cornwall’s brightest prospects in the field.

To celebrate the first round of the new Creative Writing Award, Kate Holborow Deputy Lieutenant, hosted a presentation evening at St Austell Brewery on Wednesday 12^th April. Darren Henley, Chief Executive, Arts Council England joined the event to mark the announcement of the grant and meet the four inaugural recipients. The four successful applicants receiving their awards were Amber Brierley from Porthleven, Luke Marriott from Liskeard, Nikita Midgley from Saltash and Sophie Wainwright from the Isles of Scilly.

Announcing the grant and congratulating the four young writers, Darren Henley said; “At the Arts Council we are passionate about supporting every person in England to develop and express their creativity at all stages of their life, and that is why we’re delighted to support this new creative writing award for young people through our open access National Lottery Project Grants funding programme.

“It is fantastic that projects like this help us to achieve our vision set out in Let’s Create, and I am delighted to be here in Cornwall today to announce the first group of young and talented writers who will be partnered with mentors to develop their practice, their confidence, and their skills together with the support through our National Lottery grant funding to give them the practical help they need.”

Colonel Edward Bolitho OBE, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall added: “Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly hold such a wealth of young talented creatives but sadly there are all too often limited resources to fully realise potential and develop careers.  We are delighted to be able to help these brilliant young Cornish writers, thanks to the support of some very generous organisations.  We have seen tremendous success stories from previous Young & Talented Cornwall fund recipients and I look forward to watching and reading as our exceptional young Cornish writing talent here tonight develop, thrive and achieve their dreams.”

The four successful young writers were selected by the Young & Talented Creative Writing Panel, chaired by Award Curator Philip Marsden.  Also participating on the panel were working class Cornish writer Natasha Carthew, poet and lecturer at Falmouth University Dr David Devanny and Subject Head Creative Writing at Falmouth University, Dr Jennifer Young. Mabecron Books supported the book vouchers and the Isles of Scilly Steamship Group kindly sponsored Sophie Wainwright’s travel from Scilly to the mainland for the presentation.

National Lottery Project Grants is the Arts Council’s open access programme for arts, museums and libraries projects. The fund supports thousands of individual artists, community and cultural organisations thanks to National Lottery investment. National Lottery players raise over £30 million for good causes each week, funding arts, heritage, sports, voluntary and charity projects around the UK. Over £43 billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery began in 1994.

Applications are now open for the next round of grants from the Young & Talented Cornwall Creative Writing Award. Find out more and apply by 31^st July.