Warwick Law School News

Writing Wrongs is a writing programme for local Year 12 and 13 students which supports young writers from widening participation backgrounds to explore issues related to social justice and to improve their storytelling and writing skills.

Picture: Writing Wrongs 2024-2025 winner Cocoa-Bee Gliwa is presented with a certificate by award-winning author Casey Bailey

Last year’s programme was a great success with 30 young people from Coventry and Warwickshire, and the wider West Midlands, taking part and receiving one-to-one support and tailored feedback across a series of weekend workshops. Students worked with a team of tutors, consisting of professional journalists, authors, and postgraduates from the Warwick Writing Programme. Tutors held one-to-one sessions with each participant, exploring their story ideas and giving feedback on their initial plans, various stages of drafts and their final piece.

A highlight of the 2024-25 programme was a guest lecture by former Birmingham poet laureate Casey Bailey at the Writing Wrongs celebration event. The event is a chance for the students who have taken part to appreciate how far their writing has progressed throughout the programme and to hear from a professional writer. Casey Bailey is a playwright, published author, musician, educator and performance poet. He spoke about his own journey, sharing advice about building a career as a writer. After answering questions, he presented each Writing Wrongs participant with a certificate.

The Writing Wrongs Programme is led by Mary Griffin, Associate Professor at Warwick Law School and Editor of Lacuna Magazine:

"Each year the students come up with story ideas that intrigue and impress us. The group chose a range of subjects and writing styles, asking how social media affects loneliness, celebrating Kurdish identity, and exploring the unequal division of domestic labour. We were impressed by their originality and by the breadth of their research."

This year’s winning story was written by Cocoa-Bee Gliwa, who explored the impact of an Inclusion group to support LGBTQ+ students at school. Cocoa refined the story during a paid summer internship with Lacuna Magazine and it is due to be published in the autumn term. You can read the stories of our Writing Wrongs 2024 joint winners Muna Alzuhairi and Ollie Hadgie whose work was published in Lacuna last year. We are delighted that Ollie was also shortlisted for the Orwell Youth Prize 2024.

Applications for the 2025/26 Writing Wrongs Programme are now open.

The deadline for applications is Saturday 22 November 2025.

For more information see the Writing Wrongs webpage.