WriteSpace
A space for young people from all backgrounds to develop and share creative writing.
Who we are
WriteSpace is an initiative of The Kartik Foundation, created to give young people from all backgrounds the time, space and confidence to develop their creative writing. We bring students from independent and maintained schools together in workshops led by professional writers and practitioners, in an inclusive and inspiring atmosphere.
Expertly crafted sessions
WriteSpace is built around a series of creative writing workshops designed to introduce students to fresh ideas, share the craft of writers working in different forms, and ultimately give participants a space to produce their own work. Sessions blend insight from established voices in poetry, prose, journalism and drama with the support of English teaching staff at our partner schools.
A shared space across schools
WriteSpace runs as several parallel strands, each anchored to a partner school and the state-school network it works with. At Westminster, students share the workshops with their Platform+ peers. At St Paul’s and Alleyn’s, the model is the same, with each independent school’s pupils writing alongside the state-school students from its outreach network. The Ark strand brings together students from across Ark’s London academies. Within each strand, students from very different school environments share the same room, the same writers, and the same inspiration — and discover that the writing life isn’t reserved for a particular kind of student or a particular kind of school.
The Spark Awards
To celebrate the writing produced through the programme, at home, and in students’ own time — every WriteSpace year culminates in the Spark Awards. The prize currently runs in three regional streams: in the Westminster Platform+ cohort, across the Ark network, and at St Paul’s School. All streams accept prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction, and both are judged by panels that include academics, English department leads and members of The Kartik Foundation team.
Our partners
WriteSpace exists thanks to the schools, organisations and publishers that share its mission. Our current partners include Westminster School (and the Platform+ programme), St Paul’s School, Alleyn’s School, the Ark schools network, the National Theatre, the Institute of English Studies, and Pushkin Press, who generously donate books for our prize-winners.
For more information on WriteSpace, please visit its dedicated page https://www.writespace.uk/
The session was not at all what I expected it to be. It was something unique and different. The University Professor was brilliant at keeping us engaged and interested in the novels and helped us understand the importance they have in current times. It felt refreshing to see someone from an ethnic minority background in her status and someone so proud of their background and ethnicity. As someone who has always struggled to find representation of south-east Asian females in the world of literature and liberal arts, it was relieving to see someone like her. Her dedication and love for literature was felt in the way she spoke to us.
