£15,000 will pay for 25 aspiring adult writers to attend an Arvon creative writing course in 2010. For these past forty years we have been helping to launch the careers of many well-known and award winning writers. These include Jean Sprackland who won the Costa Prize for Poetry in 2007, Mimi Khalvati, Cholmondely-award winning poet and founder of the Poetry School, Lemn Sissay who was a Barnardo’s boy when he first attended Arvon and is now Poet-in-Residence at the South Bank, Jackie Kay, Pat Barker, Esther Freud and Simon Armitage, tipped to be the next Poet Laureate. Many of the writers who wish to attend Arvon and would benefit from the experience are unable to pay the full course fee (in 2010 this is £595) due to financial disadvantage. An Arvon experience is open to all - no qualifications are needed, just an ability to be creative and a desire to write. People from every walk of life and every part of the UK attend Arvon, and many are on a very low wage or no income at all. So, we provide grants for writers and aspiring writers aged over-16 who fit these criteria. We also help those that are registered disabled, OAP's, students and teachers. In 2009 we will have helped over 300 such people by paying all or part of their course fee. Arvon courses are 5-day residentials for up to just 16 people at a time. They cover all writing genres including general fiction, crime, short stories, books for children and young people, poetry, songwriting, plays, graphic novels, nature and food writing. They are taught by two professional writers with teaching experience, many of whom started their writing careers as students on an Arvon course. We know that this formula is successful as we receive wonderful feedback each year from grant recipients telling us exactly what the opportunity has meant to them: “It may sound dramatic but this (grant) changed my life. I am now 65, living alone on a low income, but since the Arvon week I am now a writer. Having professional writers tell me my work was good/showed promise was worth more than I can express in words. Thank you, thank you Arvon. I plan to attend more courses and hopefully in the future I will be able to pay my own fees out of my earnings from writing.” Pensioner “Thank you so much for the grant towards the cost of the course in radio writing. As a carer for my profoundly disabled son ‘time for me’ does not happen often, and to be able to share a week off with people who share my passion for the written word was priceless. I came away determined to continue writing and producing work at both the rate and the quality I achieved during my week there (Arvon).” Unwaged. “I would like to thank you for the grants I received. Without them I would not have been able to attend the course at Lumb Bank. The whole experience of being with fellow writers has made me feel like I am part of a community of aspiring novelists.” Low income. “As a primary teacher with responsibility for leading English I found the starting to write course at Arvon an invaluable experience which will certainly contribute to my ability to teach writing and to develop English as a subject within a primary school setting.” Teacher. So by donating towards this target you can help writers from disadvantaged backgrounds from all over the UK with their professional development as writers and maybe to go on to be award-winners too.