Pieces of writing from women celebrating Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty were broadcast by BBC Radio Norfolk in April and May 2021 as part of our project with Feathers Futures funded by Norfolk County Council.
Thanks so much to all who sent in submissions and audio recordings it’s been fantastic to read and hear such diverse and beautiful responses. Settings for the mix of poems and micro stories varied from urban estates, to the Norfolk landscape with many women writing for the first time – producing some really moving results.
On International Women’s Day in March I also talked as part of Feathers Futures’ online celebration, on wellbeing and literature and finding empowering inspiration from women writers and artists. The idea of a matriarchal creative heritage was brilliantly explored by the Whitechapel Gallery’s excellent Laura Smith, who curated Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings (Fitzwilliam Museum, 2018) and I interviewed for Cambridge Edition magazine.
While writing in Great Yarmouth in 2019 I was blown away that you can visit the very house where Anna Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth (Kirsty’s Cakery, on Church Plain). It’s not widely known, but her novel Black Beauty is one of the best selling books in literary history, blazing a trail for animal rights and the abolishment of bearing reins. Sewell died months after it was published and wrote to challenge oppression and improve conditions for her beloved horses. Without a doubt, she achieved her dream.
Writing can help change the world. Keep writing and keep going!