Canelo / Arts Council England

Canelo / Arts Council England | 

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Literature in the 21st Century: Understanding Models of Support for Literary Fiction

network, centred as it is amongst London-based, white and middle 

class constituents, favours those already on the inside. This isn’t an 

insuperable barrier – but it’s inarguably a barrier that must be overcome. 

Opening up the insider networks of writers, agents, publishers, 

reviewers and commentators around literary fiction is, then, one of the 

key challenges in opening it up generally. 

It would be wrong to say that writing is a closed shop. Agents in 

particular were keen to stress their openness to submissions and 

a number of young editors talked about their willingness to bypass 

traditional channels to find new voices. It would equally be wrong, 

however, to say that the literary marketplace is equally accessible to all; 

having the right connections still matters greatly, and these are to some 

extent still governed by questions of race, class, gender and location.

Recap

Returning to some of the assumptions covered in this report (the rest 

will be explored below), what can we see?: 

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