Working-class writing, alternative publishing and audience participation

Working-class writing, alternative publishing
and audience participation
Tom Woodin
INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, UK
By definition marginal voices are rarely heard; their appearances in the historical record are even less frequent. Examples of such expression often have
to be carefully searched for and sometimes freed from the institutional frameworks in which they were collected. In the process we may find that people’s
intentions have been translated into stereotypes far removed from an original
impulse. Overcoming these perceived difficulties has been a significant factor in some forms of ‘alternative’ and ‘radical’ media which have aimed to
challenge dominant structures and assumptions. Indeed, there is a long history of diverse and varied initiatives in what may be broadly defined as radical literature (for instance, Hollis, 1970). A few important critical studies have
also charted recent examples of alternative and radical media, an interest
which testifies to the continuing significance of such forms within political,
social and cultural movements (Atton, 2002; Downing, 2001).
From the early 1970s to 2007 the Federation of Worker Writers and
Community Publishers (FWWCP or ‘Fed’) provided one such forum for the
discussion, production and distribution of writing by marginalized groups.
Today the ‘Fed’ continues as an informal grouping. The broad cultural movement which surrounded the Fed has always been marked by a diversity of
writers, publications and groups. For example, writing groups have concentrated on poetry and prose whereas community groups recorded and published oral history and autobiography. Adult literacy tutors developed
learning materials by transcribing their student’s speech (Woodin, 2008).
While some collectives remained small-scale, others developed into larger
formations comprising workshops, publishing and outreach initiatives.
The Fed itself had roots in earlier movements, most notably, the radical
milieu of the late 1960s, a period closely associated with an ‘alternative press’
Media, Culture & Society © 2009 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi and Singapore), Vol. 31(1): 79–96
[ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443708098247]
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(Dickinson, 1997; Fountain, 1988; Nelson, 1989). Some of those who had
helped to start Fed groups had also been active in the earlier student ferment
and, in the 1970s, many activists would engage with local working-class communities, often as part of networks that overlapped with the ‘local alternative
press’ (MPG, 1980a). In doing so, they created opportunities to learn and
develop common understandings. Moreover, some Fed groups emerged out of
community newspapers, such as QueenSpark in Brighton, where its local
paper, also called QueenSpark, printed memory and autobiographical snippets – publishing books became a tangible continuation of this trend. Indeed,
the positive feedback received from audiences was one impulse which helped
these groups to continue their radical activity at a time when the energies for
specific campaigns were waning. Similarly, the Scotland Road Writers’
Workshop in Liverpool grew out of a rent strike in the early 1970s – again
writing was to be a tangible outcome of the earlier campaign for many workingclass people. There was also two-way traffic between Fed groups and alternative press. For instance, Tony Harcup, for many years the editor of Leeds
Other Paper (Harcup, 1998), had been a member of Basement Writers in East
London, which published a collection of his poetry. The Fed inhabited the
shared universe of this counter-cultural movement, which brings into question
the idea that there have been no recent examples of alternative media that
combined creative expression and social responsibility (Woodin, 2005a;
Atton, 2002: 14).
Moreover, given the Fed’s mission to enable ‘ordinary’ people to access
these cultural practices, it is unsurprising that there have been on-going
debates in relation to inequality and culture, specifically around class but also
race, gender and disability. By comparison, many recent forms of alternative
media have not always addressed such issues and, arguably, tend to be more
middle class in composition (Atton, 2002; Comedia, 1984; Landry
et al., 1985; Min, 2004). In contrast, making writing and publishing a familiar
aspect of working-class life was central to the Fed’s definition of ‘alternative’,
which has also been true of some alternative local press (Dickinson, 1997). In
addition, an early focus on class would fracture somewhat as groups of black
writers, women and survivors of the mental health system all started to organize autonomously although class understandings would persist (Woodin,
2005c). Out of this diversity of identities and organizations, the Fed helped to
build a sense of common purpose in providing a space for marginal people to
find their own voices and connect to wider audiences.
Charting these interactions with the audiences of community publishing
has proved difficult. It is commonly assumed that consumers leave few
traces of their ephemeral activities which remain undetectable. Also, the
very framework nurtured by many in the Fed emphasized challenging capitalist social relations and eschewed concepts such as the ‘market’. The picture is further complicated by the fact that writing, publishing, marketing,
distribution and reading were all viewed as interrelated and merged into one
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81
another at various times. However, community publishers did develop close
relations with their audiences and evidence of these can be unearthed by
placing them within a broader social context. Historians have attempted to
overcome such limitations in a number of ways – by focusing on records left
by workers and others such as autobiography and evidence of reading over
longer periods of social and cultural history (Cavallo and Chartier, 1999;
Rose, 2001). In smaller-scale contemporary studies of alternative media it
has been possible to chart the perceptions of the audience and its impact
upon alternative projects (Min, 2004). This can be a helpful approach where
evidence of consumption is limited. It is thus possible to examine the ways
in which actual and perceived audiences played a crucial role in determining
the trajectory of the Fed. Furthermore, analysing these developments historically can help us to comprehend the idea and changing practices of alternative, oppositional and radical initiatives. Paying attention to the ways in
which such projects emerge and are defeated or become submerged in the
mainstream may also provide insights into contemporary issues. This can be
difficult to do because of the tenuous nature of alternative movements and
the very fragmentary condition of ‘alternative traditions’, in which seemingly disparate moments are difficult, although not impossible, to connect
(for instance, McKay, 1996).
This study originated in my interest and involvement in some of these
groups – as volunteer, activist and paid worker at different times. As a result
I gained unique insights into a movement which has remained opaque to
many commentators with an interest in cultural formations among subordinate groups. It also provided a number of clues and leads into what eventually became a PhD study for which I interviewed 40 people and analysed
many community publications and boxes of archive material.
A new reading public
A clear sense of constituency was paramount to the initiators of these writing
and publishing workshops. Community publishers built upon and fostered a
sense of known and local community. They believed that previous forms of
working-class culture had been absorbed into traditional patterns of consumption and readership that reinforced existing hierarchies. In this vein,
Ken Worpole (1981), an activist who organized writing and publishing at
the Hackney-based Centerprise, positioned the Fed in contrast to academic
practices:
… despite an outstanding growth in the range of work done in the fields of labour
studies and the more informal modes of working-class self-organisation and forms
of cultural identity … I seriously wonder whether we could with any confidence
suggest that we have a more historically conscious labour movement now than we
have done at previous periods of crisis in the past. I would think not.
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Fed groups were conscious that accounts of working-class life had not always
been read by working-class people in significant numbers. Moreover, it was
a commonplace assumption that mainstream cultural and political institutions
had often ignored accounts of working-class experience, exploiting them for
purposes contrary to those for which they were intended (Blackwell and
Seabrook, 1985: 89). Well-known working-class writers such as the playwrights Arnold Wesker in Roots and Jim Cartwright in Prize Night have
expressed these tensions in dramatic form.
By working in areas with a sense of local community and setting up workshops, Federation groups were attempting to overcome some of these problems by building a context for the reception of writing, rather than launching
it onto an unsuspecting ‘market’ to be exploited for a profit. Instead, they saw
their work as enabling communities to communicate and reflect on their lives
as part of a process of cultural and social change with the potential to involve
much wider circles – energizing ‘passive’ audiences into a positive force for
social transformation.
In distributing these books, groups aimed to make the process and products
of publishing accessible to new readers and to break down the aura of printed
books by connecting them with life. Richard Gray, writing about the Peckham
Publishing Project, noted how publications tended to sell informally and by
word of mouth. Comments on books, and corrections, arrived on the order
forms and people regularly came in to discuss them. He became excited by
the possibility of challenging the traditional role of the ‘audience’:
The frontier between consuming and producing the printed word, so jealously
guarded by commercial publishers that few people even think of trying to cross it,
began to look passable. Some people said they would like to write but couldn’t get
started; some said they had started writing, usually for their own families, but ran
out of steam without support and constructive criticism; others brought or sent in
manuscripts ranging from full length autobiographies to accounts of particular
incidents in their lives. (Gray, 1984: 39)
Groups such as Peckham Publishing Project and Centerprise based themselves in local bookshops where local autobiographies such as Ron Barnes’
Licence to Live (1974) would sell in their thousands. In this way, books
became a more ‘normal’ part of the landscape in so-called ‘deprived’ communities. For example, QueenSpark in Brighton successfully linked the mystified world of publishing to a known and understood arena with which
working-class people were familiar. In this way they created new forms of
interaction and dialogue in local communities. Writing and publishing books
came to be seen as an extension of everyday life stimulated by the intense
interest that outsiders were starting to show in working-class life. The development of Albert Paul’s autobiography Poverty, Hardship but Happiness:
Those Were the Days 1903–1917 (1974) is a good example of how cultural
bridges were created by Fed groups to enable unknown writers to reach wider
Woodin, Working-class writing
83
audiences. Paul’s first ‘audience’ were the workmen who had exposed an old
flint wall during the improvements following the 1969 Housing Act, sparking
off many memories. Radio Brighton recorded his recollections and a local
historian encouraged him to write them down (Paul, 1981). Reading the local
history section of the community newspaper QueenSpark finally spurred Paul
to take his first tentative steps in writing; he would complete his manuscript
on days when his wife was out of the house. QueenSpark then took a risk in
publishing this experimental work. An initial print run of 1000 sold out within
a few months.
Many Federation publications such as Paul’s articulated and shared common
experiences that were reflected in the sales figures. In the early 1980s it was
noted that QueenSpark’s sales figures, in terms of local intensity, ‘make the
sales of Harold Robbins world-wide look lack lustre’ (Worpole, 1984: 93), while
Strong Words in the north-east1 could also shift 3000 copies of a book with only
minimal sales and marketing effort (Beynon, 1999; Woodin, 2005a: 354).
Centerprise even sold over 18,000 copies of Poems by Vivian Usherwood, a 12year-old African-Caribbean ‘remedial’ student (Worpole, 1996a). In reflecting
on the notion of a ‘structure of feeling’ Raymond Williams has written of:
… specific and historically definable moments when very new work produced a
sudden shock of recognition … an experience which is really very wide suddenly
finds a semantic figure which articulates it. (1979: 164)
The 1970s was one of these definable moments when the seamless post-war
ideology of progress and modernization was challenged and scrutinized, in
part by those with experience of living in pre-war Britain (Woodin, 2002).
Indeed, the explosive ‘shock of recognition’ was apparent from the sales figures for these books and testifies to the fact that they represented a wider
experience. Thus Williams’ concept, initially developed to analyse literary
works, can also illuminate the wider context of audience and reception.
Of course sales figures are not the same as the number of readers, which
was much higher. The passion that such books generated ensured they were
passed around and discussed in groups and families as new reading publics
formed. Books could become common property through repeated use. For
instance, a Mrs Y. Turner wrote to the QueenSpark newspaper about Daisy
and George Noakes’ books that:
… were loaned to me quite by chance. My mother was talking to a friend who
referred to these books written by Mr and Mrs Noakes. Apparently she had borrowed them from a relative who had borrowed then from a friend etc, etc.…
Anyway many people had been privileged to have the loan of the books – somewhat like a library but I didn’t know who owned the set. (QueenSpark, 1981)
The book format itself gave kudos and recognition to the memories and
thoughts of local people. The durability of the books ensured they were
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passed on for a long time – even acquiring the status of a ‘library’ – in contrast
to newspapers that rapidly became dated before being thrown away. Moreover, the fact that they proved so popular was a major reason to continue
producing them:
… socialists and community activists were much more used to small meetings and
hacking away and thinking you were a minority. And it was quite energising really
to realise that what you were doing seemed to be wanted by a very wide range of
people. (Yeo, 2001)
The opening up of new audiences among working-class readers created an
impetus and momentum which carried many campaigns and informal groupings into writing and publishing. Although they would continue to be
involved in wider local and national campaigns and struggles such as the
peace movement 1984/5 miners’ strike and peace movements, the emphasis
changed incrementally. During the 1970s and 1980s, cultural activities in
themselves would gradually become the core purpose of such groups.
Indeed, the development and propagation of working-class expression was
given great urgency and placed at the core of this emergent cultural movement. In their eagerness to connect with wider audiences they found cheap
ways of publishing that by-passed the normal requirements of publishing a
book. For instance, one member of Basement Writers managed to utilize his
workplace resources:
[publishing] was done by that bloke … in his lunch hour.… But every week he’d
come with a box of about 500 print run of poems which he’d managed to get published. We thought this bloke was a miracle worker! He’d turn up almost every
week with a box. (Searle, 2000)
Groups aimed to make books accessible, cheap and directly available to people
through a variety of direct means and many were sold informally. In the 1970s
QueenSpark sold their magazine and publications through networks and door
to door in East Brighton; it even had a principled stand against selling through
bookshops (Yeo, 2001). The informal distribution of Jack Davitt’s poems in
the shipyards of the north-east over a number of years created a reputation
and readership for his work that would later help to make his books, published by Strong Words, into good sellers; fellow workers had copied and distributed ‘tons of poems’ among his workmates on the shipyard (Davitt, 2001;
Woodin, 2005b: 565). The paid worker for the Fed realized that he was in no
position to directly sell its first anthology, Writing, through established formal
networks; rather, distribution should be done informally. It was a book
… that needs to be ‘passed on’ where possible, personally. Writing is an idea and
not a commodity. It breaks down the barrier – the myth – that says, only the ‘educated’ can write or express themselves. (Kearney, 1979a)
Woodin, Working-class writing
85
Readings and book launches were also an important means of distributing
work to a wider audience. Basement Writers’ roadshows found young people
proselytizing poetry to groups around East London. In contrast to the staid
launches of commercial publishers these events created great excitement and
were truly celebrations of a writer’s work and life:
… they were on the barges, and if it was a Jewish autobiography, there’d be all
kinds of kosher food and there’d be klezmer music, great! … wonderful celebrations of the life, and people had their families and grandchildren.… That act of celebration … made the book, not like a conventional book … this was blood, sweat
and tears, this way, you know, ‘my life’! (Worpole, 1996b)
The success of these events meant they became established fixtures in the calendars of most groups. If run well they were also an opportunity to sell literally hundreds of copies and keep the whole of the cover price. Launches
enabled groups to engage directly with their audiences, which had been fostered over many years, as had the writing and production of a book (Worpole,
1990). They connected the writer to their social networks and communities
who, in turn, became book buyers, readers and, in some cases, writers. The
process of building audiences around collective cultural identity was a world
apart from the impersonal and individualizing trends of the market.
The growing confidence and sense of cultural entitlement fuelled a wider
evangelism among writers keen to promote their own work and encourage
others to join them. This could lead to quite impromptu ‘performances’:
writer and Voices magazine editor Rick Gwilt remembers grabbing the mic to
read a poem at a Shakin’ Stevens concert and starting off-the-cuff readings in
pubs (Gwilt, 2000). Another writer, Sally Flood, once claimed she never got
on a bus without trying to sell a book of poetry,2 while others have stuck up
poetry posters and distributed leaflets through doors. Nick Pollard (2001), for
many years editor of the Federation magazine, remained a constant advocate
of writing, publishing and selling in such informal and enterprising ways.
By contrast, attempts to sell through bookshops initially met with mixed
success. Groups realized that what they were producing did not fit easily into
existing book-buying categories. There were attempts to sell through established outlets, in particular WHSmiths, but this proved difficult (Kearney,
1979b). Some wanted bookshops to form a ‘People’s History and Local
Culture’ section to pull together the diversity of books dealing with ‘workingclass experience’ and this was successful in some areas (FWWCP, 1979).
However, it was an uphill task and Fed books could be difficult to sell in
bookshops – they looked and felt different. Reflecting back on his experience
at Centerprise Worpole (1990) argued:
The only thing worse that not getting your books distributed by WH Smiths is getting them distributed by WH Smiths. It’s a false hope, a diversionary tale. They
may agree to take them, demand a high discount, then four months later send the
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lot back unsold. Our books simply don’t sell well in mainstream bookshops;
they’re different kinds of books. They sell locally and through libraries where there
is already a keen interest in the subject or the authors.
Many Fed books were designed collectively and became material artifacts
which added to their cultural appeal. They featured photographs of the author,
who was represented as a ‘local person’ similar to those who were buying the
book, which was often priced cheaply to encourage buyers. A contact address
for readers to discuss the book or get involved in other ways was also prominent and contributed to the overall message that, ‘you can write too’. Thus,
from the beginning, these books were created with a known reader in mind.
However, as well as being hawked by local groups these publications were
sold through wider networks. Indeed, the Fed consistently argued that its work
was of much more than ‘local interest’ and should be viewed in terms of emergent forms of literature relevant to all. The established labour movement avenues
of trade unions, Labour Party and cooperatives were one form of this wider market. Another was the widespread radical network of alternative presses, bookfairs, festivals and events which enabled writing to be reviewed, publicized, sold
and performed. For instance, 500 Fed books were sold at the 1980 History
Workshop in Brighton (Worpole, 1980). Having an external and interested market, a listening ear outside of specific local communities, provided validation and
visibility for community publishers and writing groups (see also Woodin, 2008).
The hidden hand of the market?
This culture was to change rapidly in the 1980s as radical groups became
enveloped by a hostile political environment. With the rise of Thatcherism
many socialists would move away from ‘alternative’ structures and become
more concerned to defend and transform public services. Some (re)joined the
Labour Party and became involved in local politics (LEWRG, 1980). Over
time, academic interest in class politics would be shaken by economic and
social changes and the rise of ‘new’ identity groups. Even within the History
Workshop Movement the interest in ‘experience’ declined in favour of new
theoretical paradigms as energies were re-focused away from participatory
conferences and towards the academic journal. The effect of these shifts
meant not only that FWWCP groups lost some members but also that part of
their market decreased. As a result the Fed became more isolated and much
less part of a wider movement, although it would continue to exist for many
years to come (Woodin, 2007).
This coincided with the decline of labour movement networks that had also
served as a market for books and a source of publicity. Previously, the Fed had
even produced a booklist which targeted the labour movement with some success. But this was a shrinking audience. Rick Gwilt, as a trade union arts officer in the early 1980s, was able to make use of trade union networks to
Woodin, Working-class writing
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organize artistic performances on the shop floor of Leyland Motors. However,
this struck him as something unimaginable by 2000: ‘that sort of era is gone
… that sort of whole way of operating that existed in the 60s and 70s has
steadily died out ...’ (Gwilt, 2000).
Furthermore, some groups had never been located within specific geographical communities and it was hard to sell books in significant numbers.
For example, Commonword in Manchester was based in the centre of a big
city and had set up writing groups; in general ‘creative writing’ would sell less
well than the autobiography and oral histories produced in places like
Hackney, Brighton and the north-east. Moreover, in the 1980s it would be
argued that ‘working-class writing’ was becoming increasingly outdated and
this tendency was to become more marked. Selling general books of workingclass writing could become an onerous task in certain contexts. However, as
Commonword embraced the politics of equal opportunities and set up black,
women’s and gay/lesbian writing groups it was more able to target these
growing niche markets. Some of those writers also reacted against what they
perceived as the ghettoization of community publishing, as being encased in
a local cocoon; the class and community focus inhibiting connections to
wider audiences. Elsewhere, others also yearned for more critical feedback
and became wary of being patronized by overly sympathetic audiences
(Gilbey, 2000; Woodin, 2005b: 571–2). An internal discussion document
commented on the contrast between the seemingly amorphous notion of
‘working-class writing’ and the more specific new identity groupings:
‘Nothing Bad Said’, Commonword’s first short story collection … cannot be said
to be of a lower standard than, say, the Northern Gay Writers anthology. But its
sales figures are low, whereas Northern Gay Writers has done really well.
One conclusion from that might be that we should concentrate on specific markets
– a market for gay writing, a market for women’s fiction and so on. In that case,
what happens to the good writing of working class writers without that specific
appeal? Perhaps it is simply the case that there is, at the moment, no large and evident market for working class writing.
… ideally we should reach a compromise where more commercially successful
publications subsidise those which (through no inherent fault) sell slowly.
(Commonword, c. 1986a: 4)
In an increasingly commercial atmosphere this final statement would become
more difficult to justify. Supported by North West Arts Board, Commonword
widened its remit to the whole of the north-west and started to embrace a
sense of professionalism. By the mid 1980s it was discussing the need to gain
larger sales to break into national markets and access a wider audience
through bookshops and libraries (Commonword, 1986b). In some ways this
development paralleled the concerns of some in Comedia (1984; see also
Aubrey and Landry, 1980; Landry et al., 1985; Woodin, 2007) who argued
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that such ventures were failing due to their lack of structure and willingness
to adopt a more strategic approach to marketing.
In addition, despite a continual flow of popular books, many community
publishers found that certain books did not sell and that they had been overhopeful in their sales projections. While energies were often generously committed in producing books, selling them could prove less appealing. Printing
too many copies left a bitter after-taste as people’s attics became storage for
unsold book stock. Over time, the urge to expand, or even maintain, the audience for Fed books also led to an increased focus on ‘marketing’. In a new
context, ‘customers’ could not be taken for granted. Groups with paid staff
such as Gatehouse, Commonword and Yorkshire Arts Circus wrote marketing
into job descriptions, eventually creating dedicated marketing and sales posts.
In the late 1980s Dave Parrish, a worker at Commonword, became convinced
of the need to develop mainstream distribution networks, spurred on by failed
attempts to sell books in shops where contradictory forms of cultural populism (McGuigan, 1992) were evident:
… a Forbouys or a small Smiths … we gave them the spiel … ‘these books are
written by marginalised people’ and this newsagent guy said … ‘So what you are
telling me is it’s crap, it’s worthy but nobody actually wants to buy it and read it.’
… I just thought is that the image we are giving off – that because we have some
sort of social purpose to our publishing that people assume that the writing itself is
crap – that it’s sort of patronising …? (Parrish, 2001)
Parrish helped Commonword set up the Crocus imprint, which emulated
mainstream publishers by introducing brands, barcodes, printing books with
spines and glossy covers more suitable for bookshops, and blurbs in order to
draw in a general audience. This approach drew on a more traditional idea of
marketing which influenced voluntary and community groups throughout the
1980s and 1990s, and was also related to the wider concern with the ‘customer’. It assumed that the product should be shaped to the needs and desires
of an existing market ‘segment’. Such books were produced to compete with
the novels of the literature section of mainstream bookshops. These developments were part of a general growth in inquisitiveness about business methods among third sector groups. For example, in his new guise as a consultant
working with voluntary organizations, Rick Gwilt looked back on his time
selling the Voices magazine as ‘sheer blood, sweat and determination and
cheek, but not much finesse or thinking about marketing strategy’ (Gwilt,
2000). Others later mused about the lost potential for cooperative business
development on a larger scale than was conceived feasible or desirable at the
time (Yeo, 2001).
As commercial bookshops became more important sources of income there
was a pressure to produce ‘quality’ books on subjects that would sell. At times
these developments were perceived to be at the expense of more informal
methods of distribution. One paid worker complained to me about ‘old men
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89
who wanted to make pamphlets to sell in pubs’, and portrayed them as outmoded. This tendency emphasized the need for ‘modernization’ and taking a
more professional approach, which often necessitated skilled staff and grant
funding. Paid workers who wanted to develop their publishing and design
skills were often sympathetic to such an approach:
… it was no longer absolutely grassroots with people doing it in their spare time
after coming off night shift and … all that sort of stuff which can get a little bit too
romantic.… Why shouldn’t we use professional marketing techniques to sell more
books to give writers a bigger audience? But there is always a suspicion that comes
with that … (Parrish, 2001)
Accordingly, it was argued that books should be sold at bookshop prices to
encourage people to view them as ‘real’ books; quality rather than ‘worthy’
writing.3 This concern had a long historical pedigree and paralleled the arguments of the Wesleyans in the 18th century who believed that cheap or free
books would be perceived as worthless (Altick, 1983: 36). Moreover, the
associated focus on producing books that looked professional did find a widespread sympathy. The argument chimed with many groups which had always
aimed to produce quality publications in order to value the writer and to make
a statement to their audience about the quality of the work.
However, there were drawbacks in embracing more established means of
distribution and promotion which carried no guarantee of success. For
instance, the Fed anthology Once I Was a Washing Machine received very few
reviews, despite representing a significant collection of working-class writing. Even Alistair Niven, Literature Director at the Arts Council, was angered
at the lack of mainstream reviews for this book. After sending three copies to
the Guardian and numerous phone calls, the Fed worker was informed that ‘if
it’s good enough it will rise to the top, the cream rises to the top’ – an idea
negated by the very existence of the Fed and to which it stood wholly opposed
(Thomson, 1996). In addition, not all bookshops and distributors welcomed
selling community publications. Typically they demanded over 50 percent of
the cover price and would only take certain ‘sellable’ publications, thus recalling the fears of Worpole mentioned earlier.
Aiming for national distribution also proved to be a costly and tricky business. Using distributors had limited success in the early years of the Fed,
although Commonword would make use of Password Books, a distributor
serving small literary presses. Attempts at a national Federation book club
came to nothing in the early 1990s due to the scale of such an undertaking,
and even attempts at regional distribution networks met the same fate.
Similarly, Write First Time, a national literacy newspaper with quarterly
sales of 7000 at its peak, concluded that funding for writing in adult literacy
should go into distribution, seen as a key point of weakness. However, its
request for funding from the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit fell on deaf
ears. Building such projects faced insuperable difficulties and lent weight to
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the arguments of the Minority Press Group (MPG), which complained of a
restrictive British distribution system in contrast with a more open French
one (MPG, 1980b).
One danger of focusing on the needs of an established audience, coupled
with the increase in price, was a creeping conservatism in publishing policy
based on a notion of ‘quality’, a position which the Fed had originally
rejected in favour of democratic participation as a precursor to making such
judgements (Worpole, 1984: ch. 7). For instance, Dim Sum was a collection
of short stories by Chinese writers in which Commonword included writers
nation-wide because there were not enough ‘quality’ Chinese writers in the
north-west region: ‘there is a greater and greater financial imperative in
today’s publishing market to launch only the highest quality writing’ (Kalu,
c. 1995). The fears expressed here must be viewed not only in relation to the
audience but also to another ‘market’, the funder. Being seen to produce a
certain type of writing might help to secure funding, but this approach
increasingly dismantled the bridge to first-time writers, who would feel less
welcome among those who prided themselves on being ‘professional’ and
‘critical’. The link between literacy and literature could also be lost with this
development. For example Calabash magazine, published by Centerprise in
the 1990s, declined to review Gatehouse books, claiming they worked in
‘literature not literacy’, thus re-establishing one of the hierarchies which the
Fed had originally challenged.4
Centerprise workers themselves had visited Commonword and were influenced by its approach in adopting a more ‘commercial profile … less explicitly
rooted in established ideals of “working class” writing’ with an emphasis on
‘“quality” writing, literature that will appeal to a wider market.… [H]ow
much do we want to perhaps “compromise” our historical ideals in order to
sell books?’ (Halpin, 1990). However, in the case of Centerprise these
developments would result in ceasing to publish books. It was argued that selfpublishing using new technology, along with the rise of semi-commercial black
presses such as Xpress, meant that the need for Centerprise publications
declined (Centerprise, 1997: 21). The group had also struggled with the huge
appeal of Maurice Beckman’s The 43 Group, about Jewish resistance in the
Second World War. Staff were overwhelmed, first by the sheer amount of labour
that went into producing such a lavish publication and, second, by the avalanche
of orders for the book, especially in the US. It was hard to justify the time and
expense, despite increased sales. Such groups did not always have the capacity
to deliver large projects from a standing start and found it difficult to accept that
they had a breaking point as opposed to more familiar concerns about breaking
even (Lawrie, 2001). In time, Centerprise would function as a resource for a
network of writers who aspired to be published in the mainstream; the organization represented this change as a continuation by emphasizing that more writers could be supported. The early impact of Fed groups had contributed to a
growth of writing groups that might serve as a first step for new writers.
Woodin, Working-class writing
91
I have emphasized this development within the Federation in order to help
illuminate the tensions and connections between alternative and mainstream
publishing within the Federation. This was not a clear-cut either/or distinction –
a one-way street that led towards professionalism. The groups that developed
in this direction remained well at the margins of mainstream publishing business and retained a vision of supporting the expression of marginal voices.
Even those groups that had argued for quality were being threatened by calls
for ‘excellence’ from the 2008 Mc Master Review carried out for the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Moreover, while only a few groups
were able to scale the heights of semi-professionalism that depended upon
funding, others would choose very different paths by remaining committed to
low-cost production alongside informal distribution and performance. Selfsustained and creative ways of distributing writing has been an on-going
struggle for most writing and publishing groups (Pollard, 2001). Furthermore,
informal methods of production and distribution have tended to resurface in
the gaps left by a professional approach. The pressures to produce experimental work and to publish a greater range of writers have continually served
as informalizing impulses (Dickinson, 1997). For example, in the early 1990s
QueenSpark found itself depending on printing two quality books a year, a
development which activists felt was starting to skew their core purpose:
Intoxicated by the ease of achieving high-quality book production cheaply through
desk-top publishing and laser printing, and determined to give our writers the status of a ‘proper book’, QueenSpark had been led into high printing and binding
costs, print runs that were overlong for our distribution resources and a costly,
labour-intensive process of planning, publicity, marketing and sales. We were
being led back towards the elitist economics of publishing from which we wanted
to break away. (Osmond, 1994)
In response ‘market books’, with cheaper production costs, were published in
order to involve more writers and nurture a wider range of writing. In 1991
these were sold for a pound although, by the late 1990s, QueenSpark had
reintroduced photos and glossy covers but still managed to keep costs down
and sold books at about £3. This helped to refute the claim that they looked
amateurish. Commonword also started to produce pamphlets that could be
sold at performances and by writers themselves – utilizing all available means
of distributing books just to stay afloat.
Furthermore, the wider social and political context can still impinge upon
these developments in unexpected ways. Moments of popular participation get
repeated in areas where there is a strong sense of ownership over the public
record, and a contested sense of community. In the mid 1990s members of the
Maerdy writing group in South Wales explained to me how, as they took piles
of their new pamphlet to the local library, they were beset by people coming out
of their houses to buy a copy; it took a number of trips before they managed to
arrive at the library. Maerdy was a Rhonda village with historic Communist
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Party leanings, despised by the Tories who informed the village of the closure
of the mine on Christmas Eve and then levelled the winding gear and mine area
in early January, delivering a devastating blow to the identity of the local people. Locals felt this was an indication of Tory ‘revenge’ for previous militancy
(see also Beynon, 2000).5 Raymond Williams’s explosive shock of recognition
could thus return at unforeseen moments (see also Downing, 2003).
Conclusions
The Fed emerged from a number of radical tendencies which embraced and
developed the idea of alternative publishing. Audiences and marketing were
not terms in common use, nor were they separated from other activities.
Indeed, the idea of ‘publishing’ itself encompassed an eclectic mix of practices for those in the Fed, including books, pamphlets, magazines, readings
and more informal means of communication. In this milieu it was hard to distinguish writing, production and publishing from consumption, marketing
and distribution, which tended to blend into one another. However, audiences
were crucial to the success and development of the Fed. The fact that this cultural work proved so popular encouraged groups to continue doing it, sometimes at the expense of other campaigning activities.
Groups emerged from and proselytized among working-class communities
with the aim of encouraging participation, not just as a traditional audience,
but also more actively as producers of culture. Writers and community publishers emphasized the importance of building long-term and on-going close
relationships with readers. From the moment of conception, actual and perceived audiences played a role in the production of books (Worpole, 1990).
Working-class people were nurtured and supported in forging new reading
publics. The focus on self-activity among working-class people and other
marginal groups was also much stronger in the Fed than in other recent forms
of alternative and radical media, where such participation has been arguably
less prominent.
A secondary audience comprised the wider radical culture, which was interested in the experience and writings of these groups. Such people helped to
support and justify the work of the Fed and propagated some of the ideas – as
reviewers, teachers and contributors – again forming a market for these works.
According to this reading, markets should not be seen as neutral arbiters of
popularity, as an impersonal force that is always ‘there’. Rather, evidence from
the Fed helps to illustrate how they are constructed, forged and developed over
time. Indeed, the social context and practices of community publishing have
been integral to understanding its audiences.
However, as these markets altered shape, divergent tendencies within the Fed
became increasingly noticeable. One can identify tensions and dilemmas in this
alternative approach which, over time, would produce conflict and further
Woodin, Working-class writing
93
change. Broader social forces made it logical for some alternative groups
to engage more directly with the mainstream. As radical networks started to
dissolve and working-class constituencies were transformed, some Fed groups
felt they were becoming isolated from potential readers. Funders also supported
professionalizing tendencies by enabling some groups to employ staff and
potentially break into bigger more diffused audiences. Furthermore, as writers
‘improved’, many wished for criticism and comment from wider audiences,
keen to move beyond the safe space of the workshop and local communities.
These impulses were further complicated by debates over identity. For instance,
some black and women writers would emphasize their fear of being ghettoized
in ‘community writing’ rather than getting the wider audience recognition they
deserved – a concern in fact paralleled among working-class writers in the Fed
and outside of it (for instance, Kelman, 1992). They felt that it was possible to
have a wider impact and there was a danger of viewing such cultural activity as
‘alternative’ – that it confirmed their inferior status. These complex debates
belie the comments of some critics, who have presented the Fed as typifying a
‘stay sweet as you are’ approach (Hoggart, 1995). But, in contrast, other groups
did emphasize the value of everyone being able to write – they worried about
the dangers ‘incorporation’ and their oppositional message becoming muffled.
A fear of the service delivery approach was that it nurtured a conception of an
audience that required a certain type and quality of book which alienated the
first-time writer. Taking such a course could also involve costs in terms of participation and democracy by ‘grassroots’ writers and readers.
At all points, alternative publishers faced choices and dilemmas about how
to respond to these changes. Clear-cut options tended to blur into more of a
pick’n’mix approach to sustaining alternative groups. Our conceptions of the
mainstream, alternative and oppositional need to take into account these fluid
and changing relations. For instance, linking with the mainstream was at
times represented as a way of changing and altering it, of building audiences
both within and beyond the orbit of particular communities. Moreover, defining the ‘mainstream’ negatively by opposing it to alternative movements
meant that a whole range of powers, institutions, public services and private
business were lumped together in a way that made it difficult to see the contradictions that could be exploited and utilized. In reality, some of these institutions were beginning to create spaces for cultural practices that had at one
time been labelled as extremist (O’Rourke, 2006; Woodin, 2002). Indeed, the
Fed helped to bring about many of the changes which made popular writing
and publishing more acceptable. Thus, in changed circumstances, a professional approach could be represented as a continuation of earlier impulses.
Having said this, simply adopting more ‘mainstream’ methods did not necessarily mean that groups automatically became part of it. In fact, the mainstream splintered at the edges, which allowed for a limited acceptance of
these cultural groupings within a given hierarchy; hostility gave way to a limited toleration rather than a full-bodied embrace.
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To understand the development of alternative publishing projects we need to
be aware of all these varied and contradictory impulses and tendencies. This
complexity is apparent in Raymond Williams’s notion of a ‘selective tradition’
in which it is never possible to account for all the social desires, impulses, feelings and arguments that are apparent outside the orbit of dominant institutions.
Thus there is always a potential for initiatives which articulate these wider
forces and, at specific historical moments, respond to their overwhelming
force in constructing visions and practices of cultural democracy.
Notes
1. Strong Words never joined the FWWCP but was closely associated with the
wider movement.
2. Sally Flood related this anecdote to the audience at a FWWCP reading, AGM 1991.
3. Some people argued this at a marketing training day held by Password Training,
Manchester, 1998.
4. Personal memory.
5. Personal memory, took place 1996.
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Tom Woodin is a lecturer in the history of education at the Institute of
Education, University of London. He has written a number of articles on worker
writers, community publishing and adult education which have been published
in Sociology, Paedagogica Historica, International Journal of Lifelong
Education and History of Education. He is also researching the raising of the
school leaving age, the life and work of Brian Simon and the history of the
cooperative movement. Address: Institute of Education, University of London,
20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. [email: [email protected]]