The Emma Press receives £28.5k Arts Council England funding for work in Birmingham & the Black Country
We are delighted to announce we have secured £28,456 in funding from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants. With the money we will develop a pilot Young Publishers scheme in a Birmingham school, and create events for children & their carers in Black Country libraries.
Inspired by our work last year to establish the Birmingham Editorial Readers Group, this new project will work to provide early experience and knowledge of publishing to teenagers in a Birmingham school. Entitled ‘Beyond the Book’, this project aims to introduce a group of young people to the vast number of creative jobs involved in bringing a book to publication, hoping to inspire them into reading and future jobs in the arts. The work has been made possible by partnership with the National Literacy Trust’s Birmingham Hub, who exist to raise literacy levels in the city.
The Emma Press mission is to make literature and publishing as open and accessible as possible. With relatively few publishers in the Midlands, the project aims to develop skills and understanding of the publishing industry and processes within Birmingham communities.
In another project strand, we will bring Emma Press authors and partner artists into libraries across Sandwell, creating free events for children and their carers to engage in books in unique ways. We will provide free books to participants for them to continue their reading journeys at home.
“Our work creating the Birmingham Editorial Readers Group in 2023 was an inspiring process for The Emma Press team, reaffirming in us the desire to make publishing open and accessible, and encouraging us to widen opportunities and awareness even further in our local communities. We’re excited now to expand that mission by working directly with younger people in the most culturally mixed city in the UK. We hope this project plays a small part in building the next generation of independent publishers, designers, editors and storytellers – the foundations of a thriving Midlands literary scene.”
James Trevelyan, Director, The Emma Press
