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High Street Tales: a project with Historic England

We’ve appointed Maria Whatton as our socially engaged writer, to write a short story as part of a nationwide project to celebrate the future of the local high street.

Maria is also involved in a podcast about the project, and is part of an ebook of the same name.

The High Street Tales podcast series has today gone live, and you can listen to it on all your usual podcast platforms.

It is all part of a 4-year programme of cultural activity by Historic England, called High Street Culture which you can read about here.

More about the High Street Tales podcast and ebook.

You can hear Maria Whatton’s story about Wednesbury on Wednesday 24 March 2021.

Let us know what you think! Tag us on social media (we’re @writingwestmidlands on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) and include #HighStreetTales.

 

THE PROJECT

High Street Tales is part of the cultural programme of the High Street Heritage Action Zones (HAZ) project run by Historic England. Its aim is to create a set of stories to be broadcast and distributed online that celebrate the local high street, the people and communities who depend on them.

 

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE’RE DOING

Writing West Midlands is one of seven literature development agencies working across England with a shared commitment to supporting the artistic and professional development of writers and promoting a greater diversity of voices in the many worlds of writing and reading.

We are working together as part of the HAZ project to create stories from seven towns across England exploring the communities who live there and the role that their high street plays for them. Each of us is commissioning one writer to create a story from one town.

Writing West Midlands has appointed Maria Whatton to create a story about Wednesbury (specifically, the area around the Market Place and clock tower.)