First Story is a literary charity. It was founded in 2007 by Katie Waldegrave and the writer William Fiennes[1] to improve literacy and foster creativity[2] in young people through creative writing. The organisation focuses on “challenging” state schools[3], and from September 2010, they will be running twenty-three residencies in schools in London, Oxford and Nottingham.
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First Story supports and inspires creativity, literacy and talent in UK schools and their communities. They arrange and pay for acclaimed authors to run creative writing workshops for students in ‘challenging’ secondary schools across the country. Each author leads weekly after-school creative-writing workshops for up to sixteen students. At the end of the workshops, First Story publishes a professionally produced anthology for each school, and the schools host book-launch events at which the students read their stories aloud to friends, families and teachers. In addition, they encourage schools to continue their publications independently of First Story and provide resources to help students and teachers build ‘writing schools’. They are aspiring to develop First Story hubs in strategic locations across the country, which will ensure that every secondary school student has access to the creative provision to which First Story believes he/she is entitled.