“Literacy is a basic right for all!”

We as Black people have always recorded our history, our live and our experiences to share knowledge with other generations, be it in the oral tradition or the written word. Poetry prose and short stories are just some of the ways we use today to record our experiences. Now the people of Moss Side rightly have the resources to spread that written word.

In the edition of MOSS SIDE WRITE members of the Black community have come together to share our writing. The magazine reflects our experiences through our eyes — for once it is we who are the tellers of history.

Literacy should not be a privilege for the few but a basic right for all. Everyone has feelings therefore everyone has poetry within them. We simply require the tools to release our varied talents. As you turn the pages of this magazine you will see, feel and maybe even hear some of our many experiences.

—Taken from the introduction to Moss Side Write Issue 2

The work featured in Moss Side Write was developed at The Black Writers Workshop, the predecessor to Identity. The poems, short stories and illustrations here give us an account of the thoughts, feelings and experiences of Black people living in Manchester in the late 1980s.

Publication date: 1987