About the Anthology
For ten years, young writers from Ilkley and Bradford have shared, practised and polished their craft under the tutelage of Michelle Scally Clarke, Becky Cherriman, Sai Murray and other guest writers.
To celebrate ten years of Young Writers, we invited Young Writers and group leaders of past and present to contribute their poems, prose and reflections on their time to an anthology.
Due to the pandemic and the geographical spread of the Young Writers, the group met over Zoom to discuss the design, title and to write a group poem for the anthology.
One-to-one editorial meetings were also arranged with Becky and Michelle to give a true sense of the publishing process and to produce a book all writers are proud of.
An important part of the editors’ process was the idea of ‘ownership’ and pride. This meant the editing process was collaborative; editors made suggestions, but it was the Young Writers’ decision which changes, if any, they wanted to make. Becky discusses this process further in her Editorial Note at the beginning of the anthology.
“Editing is not a science; it is not usually about making sure everything ties up neatly (although sometimes it might be). Some of the best poetry affects us through workings the reader cannot see. We often know intuitively when something jars badly, or when part of a piece is untrue to the whole. When rewriting, it is important to listen to that intuition as well as knowledge of writing techniques and feedback from others.
The writers sent us what they felt was their best work to date and we wanted to honour that by showing this flamboyance of writing in its best light whilst retaining each unique voice. This is the line we have walked together in compiling this anthology.”
Take a look at some of the Young Writers’ experiences of working on the anthology.
