About the oral history project

The Worker Writers and Community Publishers Oral History Project (2025-26) celebrates 50 years since the FWWCP was established in 1976. We are interviewing former FWWCP members and inviting them to reflect on the ideas, motivations, moods, contexts and collective working practices of specific writing and publishing groups. The project is generating an archived collection of interviews, an exhibition and workshops to engage new audiences with the inspirational and community-building work of the FWWCP.

So far, we have interviewed individuals involved with the following writing and publishing groups: Centerprise, Hackney Writers, The Basement Writers, Peckham Publishing Project (all in London); Commonword (Manchester); Nottingham Writers Workshop; Bristol Broadsides; QueenSpark (Brighton), Stevenage Survivors, GROW (Hastings), Heeley Writers (Sheffield), Pecket Well College (Hebden Bridge).

We would be pleased to hear from anyone else interested in talking about being part of writing and publishing groups (email: j.harding@londonmet.ac.uk)

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Project lead: Professor Jenny Harding (London Metropolitan University)

Partners: Dr Nick Pollard (Sheffield Hallam University), Jenny Yu (TUC Library, London Metropolitan University) 

Website developers: Roland Urban, Lisa Constantinou 

The project supported by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant