Our E-Newsletter

Pen to Print sends out regular emails to keep friends up to date with all the fun things we do.

We have an ongoing programme of free creative writing classes, workshops, author and arts events and we hold our annual literary festival ReadFest every September.

If you would like to receive regular updates please do sign up below.

February 2023

Pen to Print’s February 2023 Newsletter

In this edition:
Celebrate LGBTQ+ Month
New Courses
Ben Aaronovich

January 2023

Pen to Print’s January 2023 Newsletter

In this edition:
Happy New Year!
The Road to Publishing
Pen to Print Competitions

December 2022

Pen to Print’s December 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Merry Christmas
Funding News
Audio Workshops

November 2022

Pen to Print’s November 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Sci-Fi / Fantasy Month
New Competitions

October 2022

Pen to Print’s October 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Write On! featuring Louis De Bernières
Black History Month
New Competitions

September 2022

Pen to Print’s September 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
ReadFest 2022 Starts TODAY
Highlights for September
Last chance to enter The Book Challenge!

August 2022

Pen to Print’s August 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
ReadFest 2022 Programme Announced!
Pen to Print Competitions Update
Write On! Magazine, Extra and Audio podcast

July 2022

Pen to Print’s July 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Pen to Print Winners
Trewern/Hay Writers Retreat
Summer Programme

May 2022

Pen to Print’s May 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Pen to Print Awards
Queens, Kings & Jubilees – What’s It All About?
Synopsis and Submission Workshops
Write On! Together Launched

April 2022

Pen to Print’s April 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
May is Pen to Print Crime Month
Writing Romantic Subplots in Horror and Crime
Queens, Kings & Jubilees – What’s It All About?
Speech & Drama Festival Winners

March 2022

Pen to Print’s March 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Happy Easter!
Competitions Closing on 25 March
Dagenham’s Children’s Library Relaunch
Fiction for Younger Readers with Steve Cole

February 2022

Pen to Print’s February 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Women’s Empowerment Month
Jaspreet Kaur with Brown Girl Like Me
Real Life Adventure with Pip Stewart
Closing Competitions Soon!

January 2022

Pen to Print’s January 2022 Newsletter

In this edition:
Happy New Year!
Speech & Drama Festival Entry Date Extended
What’s New in 2022.

December 2021

Pen to Print’s December 2021 Newsletter

In this edition:
Christmas Greetings
Write With Wonder Competition
New Workshops

November 2021

Pen to Print’s November 2021 Newsletter

In this edition:
Sci-Fi / Fantasy Month
A Gentleman’s Evening of Poetry
Short Story Workshop
Writer’s Introduction to the Publishing World with Scott Pack

October 2021

Pen to Print’s October 2021 Newsletter

In this edition:
October Highlights
Black History Month
New Workshops

ReadFest 2021

Online ReadFest 2021 Special

In this edition:
Online ReadFest 2021 Highlights
Pen to Print Competitions Opening in September

August 2021

Pen to Print’s August 2021 Newsletter

In this edition:
Online ReadFest 2021
New Class Programme
LBBD Libraries Now Fully Open
ECS: Empower Magazine

June 2021

Pen to Print’s June 2021 Newsletter

In this edition:
The Digital Storytelling Trail
New Book Launches
Write On ! Issue 9
ReadFest Teasers
Amazing Writers Workshops

May 2021

Pen to Print’s Crime Month Newsletter

In this edition:
Crime Month
Write On! Introduction Workshops
Writer Mentoring with All Stories

March 2021

Pen to Print’s March 2021 Newsletter

In this edition:
Women’s Empowerment Month
Notes from Dad’s Room Play Reading
Audio Play Competition

Christmas 2020

Pen to Print’s Christmas 2020 Newsletter

In this edition:
Write On! & Pen to Print Team’s Christmas Gift
Updates on the New Year’s Programme
Pen to Print 2020 Awards
Christmas Greentings

September 2020

Pen to Print’s September 2020 Newsletter

In this edition:
Black History Month 2020
Launching The Cursed Shore
Virtual Book Club
The Matchgirls Memorial Competition

July 2020

Pen to Print’s July 2020 Newsletter

In this edition:
Writing in the Time of Covid-19
Write On! Extra
Digital ReadFest 2020
New Course Programme Released
Competition Deadlines Looming

February 2020

Pen to Print’s February 2020 Newsletter

In this edition:
Kimberley Chambers Event Update
Half-term Tangle Tales Theatre Experiance
ReadFest 2020 Announcements
Audible Workshops Starting
Competition Deadlines Looming

December 2019

Pen to Print’s December 2019 Newsletter

In this edition:
Festive Greentings
Write On! Issue 3 is out now!
New Book Launches for 2020

October 2019

Barking and Dagenham Black History Month

Pen to Print’s October 2019 Newsletter

In this edition:
Hightlights of ReadFest 2019
Write On! Magazine Issue 2 is out
Exciting October Events
and
Black History Month Events

Summer 2019

Pen to Print’s Summer 2019 Newsletter

In this edition:
The Pen to Print Brand Refresh
ReadFest 2019 Programme
Pen to Plate
Pen to Print International Storytelling 2019/20 Programme

July 2019

Pen to Print’s July 2019 Newsletter

In this edition:
Pen to Print Competition Winners 2018/19 Announced
Write On! Magazine Launched
New International Storytelling Year Starts

June 2019

Pen to Print’s June 2019 Newsletter

Crime Month
Pen to Print Awards
Playwriting Final
Postcards Short Play Event

Spring 2019

Pen to Print’s Spring 2019 Newsletter

Women’s Empowerment Month
Looking forward to Crime Month
and Spring Events

March 2019

Pen to Print’s March 2019 Newsletter

Book Launch: The Barking Foxes Poetry Anthology, 11 April.
Claire Buss Book Surgery 0n Social Media, 16 April
Katie Ginger with The Little Theatre on the Seafront, 26 April
Sweethearts of Ilford Lane with Farzana Hakim, 30 April
Michael Feld Cretive Writing Competition for Young People

February 2019

Pen to Print’s February 2019 Newsletter

New York Times bestselling author Kate Moore with Radium Girls on 8 March
Workshop on how to pass the 11+ exams and choose a Secondary school for your child on 13 March
Najla Love Stories with Ola Awonubi 14 March
Beautifully Flawed with Arinola Araba 20 March

With reports on Love in the Library and Comic Book Workshops held in February.

January 2019

Pen to Print’s January 2019 Newsletter

Including details of Eithne Cullen’s book launch of ‘Never Not in my Thoughts’ and Karl Nova’s trips to Schools in Barking and Dagenham.

If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison

One should begin any work of fiction with the longest, most convoluted sentence imaginable, then try to beat that record.

Charles Dickens

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the readers.

Stephen King

You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.

Octavia E.Butler

Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly.

Agatha Christie

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

Louis L’Amour

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

James Thurber

Creativity is contagious, pass it on.

Albert Einstein

To write successfully, one requires only a sharp pencil, a piece of paper and a hot cup of tea.

Agatha Christie

Poetry is when an emotion has found it’s thought, and the thought has found words.

Robert Frost

Writing lets you break boundaries because you can go anywhere you wish.
The voice in my stories is sometimes authentic, sometimes it is foreign.
Sometimes it is old. Sometimes it is new. Sometimes my writing is Muslim, other times it is Sikh and many times, it is no one’s religion because as long as I am telling the story,
I am in control.
I am whoever I want to be.

Farzana Hakim, Book Challenge Author