Tom Newlands will be our 2024 London Writer In Residence. He is a Scottish writer living in London. He is the winner of a London Writer’s Award, a Creative Future Writer’s Award and New Writing North’s A Writing Chance. His debut novel Only Here, Only Now is forthcoming in June 2024 from Orion.
Tom’s residency is in partnership and hosted by Bethlem Gallery. Established in 1997, the gallery provides a professional space for high-quality artwork and fosters a supportive artist-focused environment. Bethlem Gallery’s vision is an equitable society where art and mental health are a valued part of every day, and works with artists to lead change in health and society.
The focus of Tom’s residency will be our ability to reimagine our surroundings with language. Bethlem Gallery stands in the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and, mindful of its history and the ways in which people may have responded to the grounds and the buildings in the past, Tom aims to celebrate positively the power of our imaginations and explore ways in which we can improve our mental wellbeing through imaginative escape.
Tom will lead a range of workshops showing how we can think creatively about the mundane, and begin to construct our own realities through the written word. He will also spend time in the gallery interacting and talking to visitors, and working with them to create written responses to the works exhibited at that time.
For more information about Tom’s workshops and when he will be at the gallery, sign up for our newsletter or check the What’s On page of Bethlem Gallery.
About the 2024 Writers In Residence
Our Writer In Residence programme supports emerging/mid-career underrepresented writers to engage with new audiences, new writers and underrepresented people in non-traditional spaces and in new ways. From 2023, we have begun a new programme: bringing the residence to the writer, allowing them to explore their creative interests in their hometowns, communities and unique places. They also have full rein to decide the theme of their residency, what they will explore and how. Each writer has dedicated time to write, residencies in unusual/non-traditional spaces to interact with people and gain inspiration, and lead writing workshops for local people.
The residency is part of the 2024 Creative Future Writers’ Award programme. Tom will also write a reflective blog and a new piece for the award anthology inspired by their residency. They’ll share this new work as part of the award showcase at the Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival in October.
The residency is made possible with the generous support of Arts Council England, the Garrick Charitable Trust and Amazon Literary Partnership.
