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Write Out Loud
Guidelines for Applicants - How to Apply
- Write Out Loud is for established writers living in England who would like to learn some techniques for writing for radio
- Write Out Loud is to help literary writers develop an imaginative approach to the creative use of sound.
- Write Out Loud is a useful stepping stone to help writers enter the airwaves.
Developed by the BBC, the Arts Council and the ten Regional Arts Boards to encourage established writers to explore audio opportunities, to produce interesting new literary work, and to stimulate lively, imaginative and unusual radio programming.
24 successful applicants will attend a training course tutored by a writer, a radio producer and radio technicians - they will experience at first hand the artistic and technical challenges involved in writing for radio. As well as free tuition and accommodation for the week, successful applicants will each receive an award of £250 and travelling expenses.
Guidelines for
applicants
The purpose of Write Out Loud is to develop new work for broadcast. The scheme
offers an introduction to writing for radio in support of writers who are interested in
exploring the medium of radio with a view to creating new programme ideas. All Write Out
Loud tuition and programmes involve new writing.
Priorities
Quality of Writing - even though the emphasis of the scheme is on innovation and experiment, the quality of the writing is all important. Candidates should have had work published in a recognisable publication or professionally performed, and should convince selectors that they are literary writers of creative work of the imagination.
Enthusiasm for Radio - it should be evident that the applicant listens to the radio and is excited by the medium and the idea of working with words and sound.
Interesting Ideas - Write Out Loud is looking for ideas with have a sound or radiophonic element to them. Applicants are not expected to produce a perfectly formed idea, ready for broadcasting, as this is what the scheme is seeking to develop. However, it is expected that applicants will address imaginative new ways to approach the particular creative opportunities radio offers.
Write Out Loud is not for:
- plays or short stories, because these are already highly developed on the airwaves.
- writing for children, because the opportunity for broadcast is too limited
- existing work with sound 'added'.
How to Apply
All applications should be sent to the Literature Department of your Regional
Arts Board (East Midlands Arts, Epinal
Way, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 0QE, http://www.arts.org.uk/ema/)
by 30 September 1998, and should include:
- a letter of application, briefly setting out your reasons for wishing to write for radio
- a programme idea that you would like to develop for radio
- your CV including address, telephone/fax number and writing career to date (one side of A4)
- a photocopy of a piece of previously published work together with the front cover
- in the case of professionally performed work, please enclose 3 tapes containing a 5 minute extract together with a transcript and a copy of an advertisement or flier or programme showing details of the performance.
Examples of published work could take the form of a chapter from a novel; a short story or ten poems from a collection or anthology; an Act from a published playscript. In the case of an anthology please also include the Contents Page showing your contribution, as well as a copy of the front cover.
Please do NOT send books or bound/stapled material as your application will need to be photocopied for judging purposes. Original material should not be enclosed as submission documents cannot be returned to the applicants.
To be eligible to apply you must be resident in England and have had fiction, poetry or drama published in volume form or professionally performed. (For the purpose of the scheme 'professional performance' indicates a paying audience.) Publications for which the writer has paid (as in 'vanity publishing' or 'self publishing') do not qualify. Writers who have attended a previous Write Out Loud course are not eligible to apply.
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