In the early Eighties, the Commonword group Northern Gay Writers published an eponymous debut collection of their work two years before Manchester held its first council-supported gay pride event. Of these writers, John Gowling is one of the most visible. Drafts of his story about two men in an interracial relationship in the north west of England are published in issues of Write On, before Commonword publishes the work in its entirety as the novella Marshall’s Big Score. Gowling was instrumental in establishing Northern Gay Writers along with other attendees of the Commonword Writers Workshop, though it is uncertain who else was involved in setting up the group. Even though homosexuality had been decriminalised, a space for writers marginalised by their sexualities and gender identities was important as they still faced a lot of social stigma across the political spectrum and throughout society. This was exacerbated by the HIV/Aids epidemic of the Eighties and Nineties and the introduction of Section 28 to Local Government Act, which sought to “prohibit the promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities. Northern Gay Writers was unusual for being a space where people could explore ideas and issues through their writing away from heterocentricity and alcohol. As with the Worker Writers, and the Black and Asian Writers, Northern Gay Writers allowed for its members to make connections with similar groups around the country creating opportunities to meet, share work and to reduce isolation. In this article written for Voices issue 28, Gowling gives an overview of the group as well as setting out some of its intentions for the future. Subsequent Northern Gay Writers anthologies include Turning Points (1986), Beyond Paradise (1990) and City Secrets (2002) but work by these writers also appears in other Commonword publications.

The writers featured in this collection are those who have described themselves as lesbian or gay in biographical information given, and/or those whose work appears in Northern Gay Writers anthologies. At the time there were no writers who identified themselves as being under the trans umbrella, though some of the writing in Northern Gay Writers publications could be read as accounts of trans life. There are also LGBT+ writers within the archive who do not wish to make reference to their sexuality or gender in their work or in the biographies they provided.