{"id":1939832,"date":"2026-05-17T09:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T06:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1939832"},"modified":"2026-05-17T09:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T06:15:37","slug":"we-need-working-class-voices-to-enrich-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1939832","title":{"rendered":"‘We need working-class voices to enrich culture’"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/fb4c\/live\/891a0620-2843-11f1-ac61-c943803d2ed3.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Kate Pasola’s anthology Bread Alone showcases working-class writers<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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A journalist has published a book about the difficulties working-class writers face, after she was pushed out of the industry herself over costs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kate Pasola, from Prudhoe, Northumberland, said she was all too familiar with writing’s “class ceiling”, having believed hard work and internships would be rewarded with success.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“But, what I realised, as my own career moved forward, was that some people were falling away from their calling because they couldn’t afford to do it,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Creative Mentor Network found the number of working-class people in creative roles had fallen by half since the 1970s, while the Sutton Trust found only 10% of writers are from working-class backgrounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Pasola, who had to leave the journalism industry for a brief period due to the cost-of-living crisis, said she first became aware of socioeconomic barriers at university. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I was surrounded by people who’d mostly gone to private schools and most of them weren’t very interested in me once they got to know even a couple of things about me,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“They’d ask what school I’d gone to when I replied, ‘you know, just like the local comprehensive,’ their eyes would just sort of glaze over.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Bread Alone includes works from writers who have faced barriers due to their class <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Pasola’s book, Bread Alone: What Happens When We Run Out of Working-Class Writers, which she edited and curated, confronts these issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It is a collection of 33 essays detailing the institutional barriers faced by those from lower-economic backgrounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“When an opportunity came along to curate a collection of essays, the first word that just fell out of my mouth was ‘class’,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I always knew that I wanted [it] to be something that included many voices giving many different perspectives on the topic, because obviously it’s such a multi-faceted issue in the UK and globally.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A survey from business magazine The Bookseller found almost 80% of people from working-class backgrounds felt class had adversely affected their career, and charities like Newcastle-based New Writing North are trying to break down the barriers they face.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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According to its founder, Claire Malcolm, added stresses such as the cost-of-living crisis are making things “more difficult” for people trying to break into the industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Claire<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Claire Malcolm founded New Writing North to support writers from all backgrounds entering the industry<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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“I think a lot of people get put off very early on because they don’t see any role models or people like them in some of the places they look,” she said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“So it’s hard to be it if you can’t see it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last year New Writing North launched The Bee, a literary publication centred around working-class experiences, which it funded through their programme A Writing Chance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For Malcolm, getting these voices heard is important because it reflects “who we think are the right people to be making culture in our country”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“You don’t see working-class or northern voices represented well in the national media and that creates a deficit,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But, for Pasola, representation is just the start.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If you don’t give platforms for those stories to be told, then the cultural landscape just becomes a very dull, homogeneous place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Sometimes we get we get caught up in talking about why we need to include people from the North East, or people from working-class backgrounds, for the ‘sake of the arts’, but voices from working-class backgrounds have always enriched culture for the better because they have different stories to tell.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow BBC Newcastle on <\/i>X, <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, <\/i>Nextdoor<\/i> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c80mvl9p40vo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/fb4c\/live\/891a0620-2843-11f1-ac61-c943803d2ed3.jpg”] BBC Kate Pasola’s anthology Bread Alone showcases working-class writers A journalist has published a book about the difficulties working-class writers face, after she was pushed out of the industry herself over costs. Kate Pasola, from Prudhoe, Northumberland, said she was all too familiar with writing’s “class ceiling”, having believed hard work and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-1939832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1939832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1939832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1939832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1939832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}