Other work has included working to launch a new independent organisation to manage the Essex Book Festival and more work with Warwickshire Libararies’ Fantastic Fun With Words festival. My GFA application to Arts Council England on behalf of Wenlock Poetry Festival was successful, as was an application on behalf of Swindon Festival of Literature. I have kept my contacts with the Dutch Literature Foundation, including two Dutch poets in the Ledbury Poetry Festival.

I have also been working on a collection of poetry to be published by Smith Doorstop in Autumn 2011. This has been an enormously time consuming process although it has been a joy to work with my editor Peter Sansom. Last year (2011) saw two radio projects come to fruition: an Afternoon Play on BBC Radio Four set in an apple orchard (and recorded in an apple orchard) and an adaptation of the poem The Nightfishing by W S Graham which was broadcast as part of BBC Radio Three’s Between the Ears series.

We are now in discussion with schools in Walsall and Northfield about developing bespoke projects and busy preparing a large creative writing project  for a cluster of schools in Nechells. And today we are meeting with the examinations board OCR to discuss a creative writing project linked to their English curriculum.

Planning for the the Birmingham Book Festival are well on the way, particularly for our Spring Thing on Saturday 29th May 2010. We are about to appoint a new PR company to help us with communications, which is very exciting. In the meantime we have a poetry writing workshop with Roz Goddard in early February to promote as well as launching our Writing Squads – our Saturday writing clubs for young people.

More news soon.

Other ongoing work includes finishing a piece of consultancy for Essex County Council on the future development of the Essex Book Festival, developing new ways forward for the innovative West Midlands Readers’ Network and a fundraising project for Swindon Festival of Literature. We will also continue to work with The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, particularly on developing the Stratford Poetry Festival and hopefully on a new Poetry Performer in Residence project (a funding bid has just been submitted in partnership with Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry public library services). Our work for the Go Dutch! project will continue, with a new season of events and further distribution of the Go Dutch! sampler of new Dutch writing.

Both Jonathan and Sara will be criss-crossing the country in the first few months of 2010. As well as the weekly trips to London for various project meetings, Jonathan will be attending a first meeting of a new network of Directors of Regional Literature/Writer Development Agencies in Leeds in February and the third Lit-Up Conference in Bristol, also in February. Sara will be visiting New Writing North in January, in particular to talk about how they manage the Durham Book Festival, and has various trips to London planned to meet publishers in preparation for our first Festival in a Day on Saturday 29th May and our main Birmingham Book Festival in October.

So, we are very busy, but, of course, always interested in interesting pieces of new work…

Happy New Year!