First Story students from Co-op Academy Grange in Bradford were invited to read their writing live on Leeds’ Chapel FM on Friday 6 December. Students had prepared pieces for the broadcast, with writer Anthony Dunn, on the theme of recovery – the 2024 theme for Chapel FM’s literature festival ‘Writing on Air’. They also read work from their anthology Snapped Wires and Forest Fires which they produced with their Writer-in-Residence Sairish Hussain.
Performing live on air was a daunting yet exciting experience for the students. School Librarian Dianne Blashill was thrilled to return to the radio station (which is also an Arts Centre) and be a part of the festival again. Chapel FM host Peter Spafford welcomed the students into the studio, talked with them about their experience being part of the Young Writers Programme before they took to the microphones and shared their work. The morning was wrapped up with lunch in the centre’s cafe and a tour of the other performances spaces in the building. Click the button below to listen to the broadcast.
Chapel FM is a community arts centre in east Leeds that delivers a number of different community arts projects and is home to the Chapel FM radio studios that has been broadcasting since 2003.
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