Women writers contributed to some of the earliest Commonword publications, but by some accounts, women writers still faced barriers to participation. Writer Wendy Whitfield, who was also a visual artist and Commonword worker in the early Eighties explains:
In practice, very few women writers came regularly to Commonword. […]
Eager as some men were to hear women’s work, some were used to having things their own way. If the women did manage to make themselves heard, all too often these same men would not know how to respond to the emotions frequently found in women’s writing.
Such women writers needed a group which would share their experience of the world.
Taken from the Introduction to Home Truths Writing By North West Women, c.1978.
Commonword’s concerted effort to create space for women writers based in the north west of England and the women-only writer group Home Truths was set up, meeting fortnightly at Stretford Library. A number of collections and publications by women followed including Clout!, focusing on women’s experiences of domestic violence; On the Wild Side by Joan Batchelor and Diary of a Divorce by Wendy Whitfield. Around the same time, Commonword published a series of pamphlets under the name Tightfisted Poets, which included collections by Elaine Okoro (then Elaine Powell), Di Williams and Ailsa Cox.
From the mid-Eighties, Womanswrite was Commonword’s weekly workshop for women writers. Anthologies published in the late Eighties and early Nineties like She Says and and Five Women Poets show the breadth, depth and variety of poetry of written by women in the north west of England. Experimentation was also encouraged in the short story anthologies Holding Out and the fantasy-themed Herzone.
Outside of Commonword, marginalised women were starting to raise their voices in the world of writing and literature. Lesbian collective Outlanders was performing regularly in venues like The Green Room on Whitworth Street in Manchester. Black women throughout the north west of England were getting a platform through Manchester-based writer and performer groups such as Blackscribe and Nailah. The setting up of Cultureword, Commonword’s programme for black and Asian writers, led to the publication of Talkers Through Dream Doors, an anthology of black and Asian women’s writing in 1989 and Georgina Blake’s debut collection of poetry, The Delicious Lie. In the late Nineties, the Crocus Debuts Poetry Pamphlet competition gave a platform to poets Fran Pridham, Pam Leeson, Emma-Jane Arkady and Mandy Precious. Commonword also did its bit for women novelists publishing debuts by Sherry Ashworth, Cath Staincliffe and Janna Hoag. Commonword takes pride in the work it to encourage north west England women in areas of literature not just where they were underrepresented but where they were undervalued and unheard, continuing to do so in the work it does today.
