October 2024 saw the finale of Wakefield LitFest as stories written by young people from the Wakefield District were shared in live performances. This peer driven festival was produced by the LitFest board (a group of 10 young people aged between 15 and 23 years) with support from Yew Tree Youth Theatre and SPARK. The boar successfully managed this project commissioning 8 young writers to create and share stories inspired by Wakefield District’s heritage sites.
The festival celebrated words by holding open writing workshops to increase confidence and skills. After the writers were selected, they were invited to workshops to develop their ideas and help them meet their aspirations. The result was the creation of nine fascinating stories inspired by such diverse places as Chantry Chapel, the Ackworth Plague Stone and Pontefract Castle.
The next task was to make sure that the stories reached the widest audience possible, to that end we recorded them and you can find the audio versions here:
We also published the stories in a zine – you can find the electronic version of it here:
Finally, we performed them underground at The National Coal Mining Museum and in the visitor’s centre at Pontefract Museum.
The project was an absolute celebration of the talent and creativity of the young people of Wakefield – here is what some of the participants had to say about it,
“It was so cool to do something I have never done before. Getting the opportunity to record an audiobook was exciting. LitFest gives these opportunities to people who may never get to experience it again. The workshop made me feel at home and when performing in the national coalmining museum it was if everyone was assimilated with the LitFest culture and so happy that these art forms have had a stage to be performed on.”
“I am really grateful for this opportunity. This is my first successful short story and as I said before, I’m often verbose in my style. I really appreciated the challenge of writing this and also that I was given a theme / location to write about. I am eager to get involved again in the future! Also, I’m really appreciative of how friendly and welcoming everyone was. It made the sharing environment a lot more peaceful and enjoyable.”