The New Writing Partnership is a collaboration between the
City of Norwich, the
County of Norfolk, the
University of East Anglia and
Arts Council England, East.
It seeks to explore relationships between writers, culture and
local communities and stimulate debate about literature and its
values through international and cross-cultural exchanges. It
follows writing wherever it leads – to the screen, to the stage,
into the classroom, into pubs, on to the web, on to the streets, in
the media and, of course, into books.
East Anglia boasts more resident writers than any other region in
the UK outside London. Each year the region draws a broad range of
writers from all over the world to its various programmes. Writers
come to the University of East Anglia to study creative writing or
as residential fellows; they talk and read at the International
Visiting Writers series in Norwich; they congregate at the hugely
popular Essex Book
Festival; and perform at the highly respected Aldeburgh Poetry
Festival.
The University of East Anglia is synonymous with literary
excellence, claiming a roll-call of famous writers – including Ian
McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Angela Carter, Rose Tremain, Andrew Motion
and W G Sebald – who have studied or taught there since novelists
Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson started the MA in Creative
Writing in 1970. This course is now led by Michèle Roberts,
Patricia Duncker, Andrew Cowan, Denise Riley, Val Taylor and
Richard Holmes.