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-class backgrounds than other entertainment industries, and that creates barriers for working-class writers. That in turn limits the kinds of books we all get to read.
We set up the Bee to build a movement of people who want to change that.
In the magazine, we’ll publish writing by working-class origin writers that reflects contemporary working-class life. Some of those writers are well established; others will be publishing for the first time. In all cases, the writing will be superlative: to be clear, this is not some kind of charity case.
To discover and nurture new writers, we will later this year launch the Beehive, an online creative writing community where we’ll support new writers and seek out new talent. To discuss established and classic books, we’ll use our podcast, The Working Class Library.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X and Bluesky to enjoy new work, to take part in discussions of class that are long overdue in our country, and to support us by sharing posts to help build our audience.
This is the Bee Universe. Our newsletter is published monthly.
Richard Benson, Editor & Claire Malcolm, Publisher
The Bee is a New Writing North project that has grown out of the Writing Chance project, which is supported by Michael Sheen, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Audible UK and Northumbria University. New Writing North acknowledges the support of Arts Council England.
