BBC Get Writing (update)

Our report earlier this month that the BBC's Get Writing website is to close has been confirmed by a Guild member, Chris Page, who spotted the announcement on the site itself.

Chris writes:

This week, posted on the BBC Get Writing Website, was a notice that Get Writing would be closing in April 05 due to funding, and a community of over two hundred thousand people will be scattered to the four winds. As you might imagine, we are not happy with this decision.

Get Writing is a very valuable home for published authors, authors who seek publication and other writers, whether they aspire to write for a living or scribble for a hobby. It is a place of like-minded individuals whose aims are to create written works ranging from short stories, non-fiction and other popular genres – it is our home in a very competitive world.

We like it here. Get Writing provides not only a platform for our own ideas, but also a support place for other writers and a lifeline for many of us that can’t work through disability and a chance to have some influence in a world that seems to have forgotten all about us. It is an essential place for those of us that have to create and bring enjoyment to others – a place of the ‘word’.

It is our understanding that the BBC’s mandate is to promote creativity – to push the mind along, after all the BBC are world famous for the training they give to their staff, so why on earth would you start moving backwards when you have twenty thousand creative minds trying to push the BBC into this century? We believe in Get Writing and believe that was should keep our voice – our creativity alive.

So please support our attempt to keep something truly magical alive, help us to write, to create, to be one community – we are your future, we are writers!