Colonial Countryside is a child-led writing and history project about National Trust houses’ Caribbean and East India Company connections. Steered by a child advisory board, this five year project assembles authors, historians and primary pupils to commission, resource and publish new writing.
After successfully acquiring funding, Peepal Tree Press are looking to commission 10 authors to write about each participating house. The commissioned work will be published in an illustrated “coffee table” style book containing the ten creative commissions accompanied by accessible historical commentaries written by experts in the field. Commissioned writers will give inaugural readings and appear at literary festivals and black history events nationwide.
Commissioned writers will be advised by historians who are experts in the field. The participating National Trust properties provide a varied picture of stately homes’ colonial links, telling a range of stories about slave-produced wealth, East India Company connections, colonial administrators, black servants, slave-trading voyages, colonial business interests, Chinese wallpaper, Victorian plant hunters and imperial interior design.
Commissioned writers will receive a fee of £1,200 and an allowance of up to £400 to cover research, travel and accommodation.
Application deadline: Midnight on 30 April 2018
Further details including how to apply
here