London Writers' Week to Benefit the Victims of Grenfell Tower

London Writers' Week has announced this year's London Writers' Week will be a benefit for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The week is moving to The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, which is local to Grenfell Tower, and will donate 100% of the week's profits towards helping the victims of Grenfell Tower.

The partners on London Writers' Week are The Writers' Guild of Great Britain, BBC Writersroom, WhatsOnStage, Tamasha, the London Playwrights Blog, Playwrights' Studio, Scotland, the National Association of Writers in Education and Writers at Work Productions.

This year's programme will take place during the week of July 3rd and is supported by The Tabernacle.

Dedicated to providing access to and showcasing the best new ideas going on in new writing in the UK, the London Writers' Week programme includes sessions with John Yorke, former Head of Drama at Channel 4 and Controller of BBC Drama Production, Philip Shelley, who runs Channel 4's screenwriting course, WhatsOnStage and The Royal Court Theatre, The President of The Writers' Guild of Great Britain Olivia Hetreed who wrote the film "Girl with a Pearl Earring", Chief Executive of the Creative Industries Federation John Kampfner, Australian Academy Award nominee David Evan Giles whose film "Paradise Road" launched the career of Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, leading young people's theatre company Boundless Theatre, former Creative Director of New Writing at the BBC Kate Rowland, and others.

London Writers' Week is also organizing a special event with a panel of leading writers on what role writers can play in responding to and helping with world events such as the tragedy at Grenfell Tower.

Co-Director of London Writers' Week Jennifer Tuckett said: "We are passionate about moving London Writers' Week to The Tabernacle and to be making the week a benefit for the victims of Grenfell Tower. This was a terrible event in London, and one which shouldn't be occurring today, and we are dedicated to doing everything we can do to help the victims and their families. As we were founded to be London's writing version of London Fashion Week, to be at the leading edge of new developments in the field, we want to do all we can to help writers and those interested in writing to play a role in helping with this tragedy and pushing those responsible to ensure no more preventable tragedies like this ever happen again."

Co-Director of London Writers' Week David Evan Giles said: "This appalling tragedy hit me very personally. I grew up near the tower and one of my nephews was born in that building years ago, so this feels like my village. London Writers' Week will do whatever is in our power to help. At times like this, language matters. So, we are adding an extra session about how writers can find ways to use the power of language to say something useful, something helpful, something powerful about this man-made disaster. It seems as if what has happened was as a result of appalling negligence - a negligence that has come out of the use and abuse of language: there has been an assault by the right of politics on the "Health and Safety Culture", as David Cameron described it. For years, "Deregulation" has been embraced or tolerated by both major parties. But these terms have clues in them: someone at some stage put rules and regulations in place not to be a nuisance but to hold back the greed that causes tragedies like this. Someone in government once upon a time cared about the Health and the Safety of our people - and all that is being sacrificed for profit. As writers, we need to find ways to articulate our grief and our anger - but we also need to help frame the language for a better and more caring future."

Tickets for the week can be booked at www.londonwritersweek.com

There is also a new donation ticket for those who can't attend the week in person - in return for a donation to help the victims of Grenfell Tower, London Writers' Week will email all donation ticket holders summary highlights from the events.

100% of the profits from the week will go to benefit the victims of Grenfelll Tower.

The week is supported by The Tabernacle - at the heart of Notting Hill's community.

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