This is a work in progress - bear with us! Some of the links above are works in progress too - especially the Outlet and Bards links. The Ek Zuban link is awaiting a new site.
The Early English Literary Canon The area between Hartlepool to Whitby has often been marginalised by literary commentators down the age William Hall Burnett, (Poet and editor of the Middlesbrough Daily Exchange) writing in 1886 in his book Old Cleveland: Local Writers and Local Worthies, made the suggestion that the early English Literary Canon was forged in this general area. Caedmon in Whitby and Lealholm, Beowulf, associated with Loftus and Harltepool, Aneirin, the Celtic bard, associated with the Battle of Catterick, John Gower (Gower the Moral) and Chaucer's mentor living, according to George Markham Tweddell) in Sexhow near Stokesley. However the area has been far from barren! There has been a wealth of writers of all kinds in the area from 500AD, and indeed
Fuller details of the history of writers, authors and poets and literary and Creative Writing events will follow soon in the overviews and the Timelines.
In 2005 we created the first Outlet site to chart the area's literary history on Tees On Line. Unfortunately the site disappeared when their funding finished. I am currently trying to rebuild the two sites, Outlet, charting the more modern history and Bards and Authors, charting the earlier history back to 500ad. Outlet was the name of a literary and development magazine we ran in the Tees Valley between 1986 - 1991. This site is for the Timelines and as posts are finished on the other sites, I will hyperlink the names and event s in the timeline to the relevant post so you can find out more. Hopefully the work will be useful for research and for knowledge. Currently the Mima Art Gallery in Middlesbrough is running a programme called Localism. It is hoped that this site will be a useful resource for that project. The site is constructed by Trev Teasdel. Bob Beagrie and Andy Willoughby will be inputting the timeline also with their more recent work.
BBC 2 Open Space - Breaking the Ice programme about Outlet and Write Around broadcast in 1990
