The next NAWE conference will be held later this year in London on the theme of gender. We hope that this will prove to be a useful and provocative topic for writers working in education in its broadest sense. NAWE aims, through its conferences, to bring together writers and other education professionals to share practise and learn from each other in a focused and supportive environment. We would be delighted if you would be interested in proposing a contribution to the conference and we hope that our exploratory thoughts below might start to inspire you!

One London primary school we worked in had shelves marked "boys' books" and "girls' books". Is this kind of attitude prevalent and is it problematic? Does such an approach to reading impact on writing?

Who are young people's role-models in the creative industries and especially literature? Does the curriculum reflect feminism's work to re-evaluate the canon or represent the diversity in contemporary writing?

Is writing an equal employment area from a gender perspective? Does the gender ratio of creative writing students at university correlate with the gender ratio of writers getting published? Is this changing?

Do some workshop styles, materials and approaches work better with one sex than the other? What are the challenges/advantages of working with mixed and single sex groups? Have you run a successful gender-specific project and would you be prepared to share your experience?

Why are boys generally harder to engage in reading and writing? Have you found useful strategies to overcome this? Can writers working in education help to address the current underachievement of boys relative to girls, which is particularly acute in English and literacy?

Are cross-curricular projects blending creative writing with science and maths helpful in engaging girls in these subjects, unfortunately still perceived as 'masculine'?
Do you see your own work as gendered? How do you tackle writing characters of the opposite gender?

Is it useful/acceptable to encourage students to look at their creative work in terms of their gender? Has feminist literary theory given female students an empowering historical and linguistic context for their writing?

Can creative writing be particularly empowering for women, especially in community settings? Is it still necessary to have women-only writing groups and classes?

If you would like to contribute to the conference by addressing any of these or related questions, we would love to hear from you. Please email proposals for practical writing workshops, papers and/or presentations with a short biog to joanna@nawe.co.uk or send them to:
Joanna Ingham, Programme Manager, NAWE, c/o Flat 8, 39 Central Hill, London SE19 1BW

The deadline for submissions is Friday 8 April.
If you are invited to deliver your proposed contribution, you will be registered as a conference delegate free of charge.

For more information or to discuss your proposal, please contact Joanna. Your ideas and suggestions will be most welcome and we look forward to hearing from you!