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The Bee Literary Magazine

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The home for working-class writers and readers

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Make your way to Durham if you can, friends, for on Sunday October 11, award-winning actor Christopher Eccleston will join us there for a live recording of our Working Class Library podcast at the Book Festival.

With poet Jo Clement, Christopher and hosts Richard and Claire will be reading and discussing the renowned poet Tony Harrison's 1978 poetry collection, From the School of Eloquence.

The collection explores class and Northern identity, and we'll be using it as a way into talking about Harrison's incredible legacy a year on from his death. As a working-class poet, Harrison has been a great inspiration to the Bee and to our two guests, and we can think of no better way to explore this than with Christopher and Jo in this setting.

Salford-born Christopher is one of the UK’s best-known actors. He starred in the 1996 BBC drama Our Friends in the North, for which he won Best Actor in the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards. In 2005, he won Most Popular Actor at the National Television Awards for his role as the Doctor in the BBC revival of Doctor Who. His film work includes the title roles in Jude, 24 Hour Party People and 28 Days Later.

Jo Clement is a Darlington-born poet of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller ethnicity. Her highly acclaimed first poetry collection, Outlandish, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2022.

The event is at 5pm, Sunday October 11. To book tickets, see link in bio.

#workingclasswriters
#chrisophereccleston
#tonyharrison
#joclement
#workingclasspoetry by @beelitmag

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The working-class writers are there, we just can’t hear them, writes Richard Benson, editor of The Bee.

Read the full comment in The Bookseller 🔗 by @beelitmag

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We're proud to say our first print version of The Bee is published today 🐝

It's a 36-page magazine, created in partnership with @_thebookseller , and themed on working-class readers in the National Year of Reading.

The issue includes:

🐝 a piece about working-class readers and why the media pretends they don't exist, by our editor @richardbbenson

🐝an extract from our Working Class Library episode about Adrian Mole, with @davidnichollswriter

🐝 @mjr_writer 's hymn to the joy of audiobooks

🐝@mayo.ao.writer on the need for us to see ourselves represented in books, and many of our friends and contributors on working-class books that inspired them.

🐝 a short story by Ash Stokes

🐝 portraits of working-class readers by @carminarip

The magazine comes with this week's issue of The Bookseller, available in newsagents now.

Huge thanks to @audible_uk for their support, which made this possible.

Thank you also to Phillip Jones and the team for their help. by @beelitmag

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4 days ago

The fabulous @terrilwhite joins us for the nineth episode of our Working Class Library podcast, which looks at the life and work of the great working-class writer Catherine Cookson.

Hugely popular with working-class women readers, Cookson was a phenomenon in her lifetime - consistently in the top 20 authors when it came to sales, and famously the most-borrowed author in British libraries from 1984 to 2002.

In this episode Terri joins hosts Richard and Claire to discuss what lay behind that appeal. Focusing on her 1968 novel about a mixed-ethnicity marriage in 1920s Tyneside, the episode was recorded live @durhambookfest , the heart of "Cookson Country", with a highly appreciative audience 🐝❤️

Podcast available on all your favourite platforms, or via our site - see link in bio by @beelitmag

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5 days ago

You know it makes sense.

#workingclass
#workingclasswriters
#workingclassstories
#workingclasshero
#stephendaldry by @beelitmag

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Half of the UK's published writers are from middle-class backgrounds, and only 10 per cent are working class. Why?

We asked Dave O'Brien, Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Manchester, to write an essay setting out how social class is defined in 2025, and why working-class people are so poorly represented in British publishing. It's an incisive and painful read, but we believe that many people inside and outside the industry believe things must – and will – now change.

"This is not just about percentages or ratios, as important as they may be for policy or organisational change," he writes.

"It is about the narrowness of the workforce that may have little or no lived experience outside of the white, middle-class origin male. It is about the impact of that on who is permitted to speak, who is allowed to take risks, and who is only offered a clichéd or inaccurate 'gap in the market'.

"Finally, it is about the lived realities that are overlooked, assumed to be unimportant by commissioners, and never given a chance."

To read the full piece, see link in bio.

#workingclass
#workingclasswriters
#workingclasshero
#ukpublishing
#politics by @beelitmag

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7 days ago

THEY TRIED TO BREAK US – BUT WE'RE BACK!

In August, our Instagram account was hacked, and then deleted by Meta. After weeks of trying, we were unable to recover the account and its content.

This was a serious blow to us, as Instagram was our most-followed channel.

We've managed to relaunch under our old name @beelitmag, but now YOU can help us to get back to where we were by re-following – or, if you didn’t follow us before, signing up.

You can also help us let people know we're back by sharing our posts and stories across your channels.

Our links with our friends and followers on Instagram have been one of the best things about running The Bee. We're determined to get it back, and start sharing new working-class writing here again.

With your help, we'll do it!

Thank you as always for your support 🐝🐝🐝

Richard,
Editor

#workingclass
#workingclasswriters
#workingclassliterature
#writersofinstagram
#writingcommunity by @beelitmag

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