To mark the launch of a new strategy for Norwich UNESCO City of Literature 2025-30, we commissioned a poem by Evie Parker Hornsby, a Norwich-based young poet.
Evie is studying A-Level English Literature, Environmental Science and French. They are one of six winners of the Young Norfolk Writing Prize 2024 for their poem ‘Pottery’. From this opportunity, they took part in National Centre for Writing’s Lit From the Inside programme in 2025, making some great connections with professionals and other young people. Evie also enjoys committing their time to the arts: theatre, painting, sewing, sculpting and of course, poetry. They are currently working on their first collection of poems about their experience growing up in Norfolk.
A Girl Named Julian
Wrote confined by the flame of candlelight
Because why should pious men decide who can read?
A grandmother named Min-sol scribbling
Recipes she won’t make with her grandchildren
A poet named Hai melted into a soldier by napalm
Writes letters home, singed with songs
A sister named Madiha used to write sonnets
In work book margins before They burned her school
An uncle named Diarmuid keeps alive a language stolen
And beaten out by a war They started
A grandfather named Kostiantyn with shaking
Hands writes through rubble and ruin of a city he once knew
A girl named Evie writes because she has
hands and the eyes to see that she can
Download the new strategy for Norwich UNESCO City of Literature
On Thursday 25 September, Norwich UNESCO City of Literature launched its new five-year plan, ‘Writing the Future: Norwich UNESCO City of Literature 2025–30’ — a bold vision to make Norwich a city where reading, writing, and their lifelong benefits are championed and accessible to all.
Developed through over 80 consultations with creative education partners, Norwich City Council, bookshops, libraries, publishers, and others, the strategy will be delivered by the National Centre for Writing with Norwich Business Improvement District, the University of East Anglia, Norwich City Council, and Norfolk County Council Library Services.
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