# The Bee
> The Bee is a literary magazine and podcast dedicated to nurturing and promoting the best new working-class writing and visual art.
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## Pages
- [Advice for writers](https://thebeemagazine.com/advice-for-writers.md) - Feedback from our editors following the Bee’s first open submissions.
- [The Bee Universe](https://thebeemagazine.com/all-about-the-bee.md) - The Bee is a literary magazine, an online platform, a podcast, and the heart of a writing community. Our mission is to nurture, publish and promote the best new working-class writing by new and established working-class writers and visual artists. We strongly believe that there is a need to discuss…
- [Archive](https://thebeemagazine.com/archive.md)
- [Sections](https://thebeemagazine.com/categories.md)
- [Contact Us](https://thebeemagazine.com/contact-us.md) - Address The Bee New Writing North, 120 Squires Building Northumbria University Sandyford Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST Email us
- [Contributors](https://thebeemagazine.com/contributors.md)
- [Coming soon](https://thebeemagazine.com/home.md)
- [Privacy Policy](https://thebeemagazine.com/privacy-policy.md) - About the Bee The Bee is a literary magazine, an online platform, a podcast, and the heart of a writing community. Our mission is to nurture, publish and promote the best new working-class writing by new and established working-class writers and visual artists. The Bee is published by New Writing N…
- [Submission Guidelines](https://thebeemagazine.com/submission-guidelines.md) - Thank you for your interest in submitting work for consideration for the Bee. We are currently closed to submissions and will open again in early 2026. We pride ourselves on the quality of our editorial support and, should your work be accepted, you will work with our editor to prepare it for publi…
- [Support the Bee](https://thebeemagazine.com/support-the-bee.md) - Support Working-Class Voices We believe that the most moving, important and insightful writing comes from the lived experience and imaginations of ordinary people. Too often, though, those people’s voices are not heard. The Bee exists to nurture, publish and promote new and established working-clas…
- [Welcome to the Bee](https://thebeemagazine.com/welcome.md) - Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter and supporting the Bee magazine – and thank you for joining us. By signing up you’re already helping us to find, develop and promote new working-class writers and their work. Publishing in the UK has a class problem. It employs fewer people from working-c…

## Posts
- [The Working Class Library Episode 8: Running Hot by Dreda Say Mitchell](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-8-running-hot-by-dreda-say-mitchell.md) - Lee Child joins Claire Malcolm, Chief Executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss Dreda Say Mitchell’s groundbreaking 2004 novel Running Hot.
- [A Guide to Running Hot by Dreda Say Mitchell](https://thebeemagazine.com/a-guide-to-running-hot-by-dreda-say-mitchell.md) - Dreda Say Mitchell was told that “someone like her” would never be accepted as a writer. But in 2004 her east London-set novel Running Hot became a hit – and changed British crime fiction.
- [Don’t You Dare Tell Me That!](https://thebeemagazine.com/dont-you-dare-tell-me-that.md) - At school, pupils and teachers bullied Louise Powell because her parents got Income Support. She found solace and friendship in greyhounds and racing. But then the bullies came back.
- [Write for the Mass Observation Archive](https://thebeemagazine.com/write-for-the-mass-observation-archive.md) - Join this national project with us and have your work archived forever.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 7: This Sporting Life by David Storey](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-7-this-sporting-life-by-david-storey.md) - David Peace joins Claire Malcolm, Chief Executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss David Storey’s classic, controversial 1960 kitchen-sink novel, This Sporting Life.
- [A Guide to This Sporting Life by David Storey](https://thebeemagazine.com/a-guide-to-this-sporting-life-by-david-storey.md) - Georgia Poplett’s introduction to David Storey’s novel and film about a young rugby league star in 1960s Yorkshire, and its place in the Northern Realist and Angry Young Men movements.
- [The Likes of Us](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-likes-of-us.md) - When he was in prison, Becka White’s dad wrote an unpublished novel. Reading it made her think about what they had in common, and why working-class people don’t believe they can be “real” writers.
- [The Politics of Gardening](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-politics-of-gardening.md) - In the face of social exclusion, taking pride and ownership of where you live, in raising a garden, is an act of resistance.
- [David Olusoga on Home and Belonging](https://thebeemagazine.com/david-olusoga-on-home-and-belonging.md) - How the working-class historian learned to reject his rejection
- [Sticker Upper](https://thebeemagazine.com/sticker-upper.md) - The kid’s poised behind a gate, slammed shut to stop the pins flying in his face. His chin’s sat on top of it anyway, supreme confidence in his reading of the game. Nothing can hurt him here.
- [Lucy Apps’ Outstanding Debut](https://thebeemagazine.com/lucy-apps-outstanding-debut.md) - Gloria Don’t Speak is the hottest working-class novel of Spring 2026. The East London author told us how she wrote it.
- [Adelle Stripe’s Olfactory Records](https://thebeemagazine.com/adelle-stripes-olfactory-records.md) - The acclaimed poet and author talks to Richard Benson about her acclaimed memoir Base Notes, the books that shaped her, and the all-important subject of crisp flavours.
- [“Wuthering Heights” Review: Problems Aren’t Only About Race and Class](https://thebeemagazine.com/wuthering-heights-review-problems-arent-only-about-race-and-class.md) - The issues with Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights run deeper than its awful casting.
- [Building My Dream Home in The Sims](https://thebeemagazine.com/building-my-dream-home-in-the-sims.md) - Louis Glazzard’s chaotic childhood, was bedevilled by poverty, and a dad who believed he was too punk for a steady job. He found a safe home in a scratched copy of a game bought in a charity shop.
- [Davina Quinlivan’s Loving Gaze](https://thebeemagazine.com/davina-quinlivans-loving-gaze.md) - The Shalimar author’s new memoir explores her working-class childhood and Anglo-Burmese heritage. She talks to Richard Benson about the art of imaginative memoir”, growing up near Heathrow airport, how to be present and what makes modern work rubbish
- [Extract: Possessions by Davina Quinlivan](https://thebeemagazine.com/extract-possessions-by-davina-quinlivan.md) - “We were all predicted fails or very low grades at GCSE and beyond. Some of my peers were already retaking the first year of their BTEC qualifications or A levels. I was going to do OK, but we all knew we were destined to work nearby at Heathrow Airport or the local warehouses like our parents.”
- [When We’re Smiling](https://thebeemagazine.com/when-were-smiling.md) - Do photographs of working-class people have to be sombre, serious and vaguely threatening? Not if Carmina Ripollès is taking the pictures, they don’t. Here’s her show of smiles from the past year to celebrate the season of joy.
- [How I Ruined a Middle-Class Christmas](https://thebeemagazine.com/how-i-ruined-a-middle-class-christmas.md) - Her family scoff sausage rolls, love a bit of tinsel, and open their presents when they get up. His eat tiny amounts of Thorntons, colour-co-ordinate, and – yes, we are in Hell – wait until after dinner. A festive disaster story from Leesa Morris.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 6: Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-6-angelas-ashes-by-frank-mccourt.md) - Kevin Barry joins Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss Frank McCourt’s 1996 memoir Angela’s Ashes.
- [A Guide to Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt](https://thebeemagazine.com/a-guide-to-angelas-ashes-by-frank-mccourt.md) - Siobhan McShane’s introduction to the plot, characters and historical background of Frank McCourt’s working-class memoir of growing up in poverty in Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s.
- [The Silence Between Fields](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-silence-between-fields.md) - In the Northern Irish countryside, the land held identity tightly. Too tightly for some.
- [Everything but the Kitchen Sink](https://thebeemagazine.com/everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.md) - Working-class TV shows are being destroyed by finance, middle-class bias and “beigevision”, finds Claire Malcolm.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 5: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-5-the-secret-diary-of-adrian-mole-aged-13-3-4-by-sue-townsend.md) - Richard and Claire are joined by novelist David Nicholls to consider Sue Townsend’s 1982 novel The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾.
- [A Guide to The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend](https://thebeemagazine.com/a-guide-to-the-secret-diary-of-adrian-mole-aged-13-3-4-by-sue-townsend.md) - Georgia Poplett’s introduction to the plot, characters and historical background of Sue Townsend’s novel about a young working-class intellectual in 1980s Leicester.
- [Are working class people saints?](https://thebeemagazine.com/are-working-class-people-saints.md) - Britain needs to stop its “sanctification” of working-class people, says one conservative commentator. We weren’t aware it had ever started.
- [Selina Nwulu’s Other Green World](https://thebeemagazine.com/selina-nwulus-other-green-world.md) - The acclaimed poet’s first essay collection asks why environmental movements exclude people, and what a saved planet might look like for a Black collective.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 4: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-4-lark-rise-to-candleford-by-flora-thompson.md) - Richard and Claire are joined by novelist Sarah Hall to consider Flora Thompson’s memoir Lark Rise to Candleford.
- [An Introduction to Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson](https://thebeemagazine.com/an-introduction-to-lark-rise-to-candleford-by-flora-thompson.md) - Lark Rise to Candleford is a classic of English working-class literature, but is commonly thought of as a cosy, nostalgic memoir. Why?
- [Extract: The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth](https://thebeemagazine.com/extract-the-parallel-path-love-grit-and-walking-the-north-by-jenn-ashworth.md) - “I began to know I needed a different way to stretch my legs and ease my mind. A couple of Google searches later and I found it. Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk; not a loop and not an amble through a city but a determined beeline slicing its way through the entire North of England.”
- [Jenn Ashworth Steps out of Character](https://thebeemagazine.com/jenn-ashworth-steps-out-of-character.md) - The acclaimed Lancashire writer’s new memoir took her, quite literally, in new and unexpected directions. She talks to Claire Malcolm about walking, illness, family and the “doubleness” of working-class experience.
- [Mark Gatiss, the boy that Dr Who books made](https://thebeemagazine.com/mark-gatiss-the-boy-that-dr-who-books-made.md) - The League of Gentlemen star and creator of Bookish on his work, snobbery in the arts, and advice for working-class writers.
- [Akan: A New Space for Diverse Writers](https://thebeemagazine.com/akan-a-new-space-for-diverse-writers.md) - Led by June Sarpong, a new imprint is making publishing more inclusive.
- [Jenny Knight’s in Ascendence](https://thebeemagazine.com/jenny-knights-in-ascendence.md) - The award-winning working-class writer’s debut novel treats female desire and relationships with incredible honesty and originality. We caught up with her to talk sex, ambition – and the solace of gardening.
- [Extract: Wild Moon Rising by Jenny Knight](https://thebeemagazine.com/extract-wild-moon-rising-by-jenny-knight.md) - He was the son of a surgeon; as far from her council-house league as her touching the top of the netball ring. Yet it became evident, fast, the magnet pulled both ways.
- [The Gift](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-gift.md) - The bus was empty but for one passenger who sat halfway down the seats on the lower deck. The woman was the man’s wife and the boy’s mother and she was leaving.
- [Beat the Sick](https://thebeemagazine.com/beat-the-sick.md) - The Government’s Welfare Bill isn’t about disability. It’s about turning the sick into scapegoats for the UK’s financial failures.
- [When Girls Fight](https://thebeemagazine.com/when-girls-fight.md) - When the lasses piled in in Noughties Scarborough, the motives were not always what they seemed.
- [I’m a Leaseholder Get Me Out of Here!](https://thebeemagazine.com/im-a-leaseholder-get-me-out-of-here.md) - Buying a council house is supposed to give working-class people the rights and privileges of middle-class homeowners. But it doesn’t.
- [Don’t Kill Count Crabula!](https://thebeemagazine.com/dont-kill-count-crabula.md) - For my Punjabi-Malaysian family, preparing food was an act of love. Although that love did not extend to crustaceans.
- [Tracksuits and Me](https://thebeemagazine.com/tracksuits-and-me.md) - I still love them, but in Tesco they can bring no end of trouble.
- [In Search of The Perfect Mushroom Omelette](https://thebeemagazine.com/in-search-of-the-perfect-mushroom-omelette.md) - When she’s better, I’m finally going to make one for my mum.
- [Working Class? Congratulations, you’re a fashion accessory](https://thebeemagazine.com/working-class-congratulations-youre-a-fashion-accessory.md) - In Wales, Nigel Farage is using nostalgia, work and class as weapons.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 3: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-3-trainspotting-by-irvine-welsh.md) - Craig McLean joins us to consider the place of Irvine Welsh’s novel in our library.
- [An Introduction to Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh](https://thebeemagazine.com/an-introduction-to-trainspotting-by-irvine-welsh.md) - Whatever you think about Trainspotting, 30 years after publications, it’s a book that deserves to be taken seriously.
- [The Thin Places of the South Wales Valleys](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-thin-places-of-the-south-wales-valleys.md) - A 25-year love affair that started in a nightclub, and ended in communion with the history of a people.
- [The Fugitives](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-fugitives.md) - **“In seaside towns, you find most people have come to escape something. That’s what brought me too, really.”** Photographer Carmina Ripollés on finding friendship among the sandcastles, arcades and ice-creams
- [Terminus](https://thebeemagazine.com/terminus.md) - **“So if you ask me what motivates me to write about buses, it’s that so little attention is paid to the significance they have for people who have no other means of getting around. The quality of their commute is their quality of life.”**
- [As Council as They Come](https://thebeemagazine.com/as-council-as-they-come.md) - If you don’t understand why the Beckhams are working class heroes, maybe you don’t understand the working class.
- [Willy Vlautin’s Everyday People](https://thebeemagazine.com/willy-vlautins-everyday-people.md) - Willy Vlautin has won the Joyce Carol Oates prize for his heartbreaking novel **The Horse.** The Bee met up with him to talk about his hard-living characters, Trump, and his worst-ever job.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 2: Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-2-giving-up-the-ghost-by-hilary-mantel.md) - Louise Doughty joins us to consider the place of Hilary Mantel’s memoir in our library.
- [An Introduction to Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel](https://thebeemagazine.com/an-introduction-to-giving-up-the-ghost-by-hilary-mantel.md) - Her working-class background was overlooked, but the double-Booker winner said it determined how she saw the world.
- [Publishing’s Class Problem](https://thebeemagazine.com/publishings-class-problem.md) - When you’re a child, your social class doesn’t determine how good you are at reading and writing. Yet half of our published writers are from middle-class backgrounds, and only 10 per cent are working class. Why?
- [Confessions of Nothing](https://thebeemagazine.com/confessions-of-nothing.md) - How I revolutionised mascara at the age of seven in my mum’s car and how she didn’t understand.
- [The Working Class Library Episode 1: New Grub Street by George Gissing](https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-1-new-grub-street-by-george-gissing.md) - Gissing expert Simon James joins us to consider how **New Grub Street** became so topical again, and to ask if it deserves a place in our fantasy library.
- [An Introduction to New Grub Street](https://thebeemagazine.com/an-introduction-to-new-grub-street.md) - How the troubled George Gissing inspired Orwell, and foretold the influence of Amazon, BookTok and poverty porn.
- [Plastic Venus](https://thebeemagazine.com/plastic-venus.md) - **“Life was hard in the city over the river. The summer’s riots still smouldered. Then one day, a car crossed the river. A Merc, with windows tinted darker than the night.”**
- [Hickling Hands](https://thebeemagazine.com/hickling-hands.md) - **“From the top of the hilly field, he looked down to the factories where he used to work, dog treats, loose change and his phone jangling in his fleece pocket.”** Mie Murasa looks back on her friendship with her grandad in Noughties Sheffield.
- [Procurement Process Blues](https://thebeemagazine.com/procurement-process-blues.md) - How did it become so hard to get paid what you’re owed?
- [A Class of Our Own](https://thebeemagazine.com/a-class-of-our-own.md) - The world needs more working-class writers. The Bee is going to find, nurture and publish them.
- [On the Joys of Secretly Reading at Work](https://thebeemagazine.com/on-the-joys-of-secretly-reading-at-work.md) - Are books more enjoyable when read in unusual places?
- [Class & the Health Lottery](https://thebeemagazine.com/class-and-the-health-lottery.md) - Why can’t all the fat, lazy, poor people be as healthy and successful as right-wing political commentators?

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