'We need working-class voices to enrich culture'

'We need working-class voices to enrich culture'Just nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleMadelynne FlackNorth East and CumbriaBBCKate Pasola's anthology Bread Alone showcases working-class writersA journalist has published a book about the difficulties working-class writers face, after she was pushed out of the industry herself over costs.Kate Pasola, from Prudhoe, Northumberland, said she was all too familiar with writing's "class ceiling", having believed hard work and internships would be rewarded with success."But, what I realised, as my own career moved forward, was that some people were falling away from their calling because they couldn't afford to do it," she said.The Creative Mentor Network found the number of working-class people in creative roles had fallen by half since the 1970s, while the Sutton Trust found only 10% of writers are from working-class backgrounds.Pasola, who had to leave the journalism industry for a brief period due to the cost-of-living crisis, said she first became aware of socioeconomic barriers at university. "I was surrounded by people who'd mostly gone to private schools and most of them weren't very interested in me once they got to know even a couple of things about me," she said."They'd ask what school I'd gone to when I replied, 'you know, just like the local comprehensive,' their eyes would just sort of glaze over."Bread Alone includes works from writers who have faced barriers due to their class Pasola's book, Bread Alone: What Happens When We Run Out of Working-Class Writers, which she edited and curated, confronts these issues.It is a collection of 33 essays detailing the institutional barriers faced by those from lower-economic backgrounds."When an opportunity came along to curate a collection of essays, the first word that just fell out of my mouth was 'class'," she said."I always knew that I wan...