Through the Awards for All scheme of the Scottish Arts Council the recently established 'Northwords' group (a registered not-for-profit company) has received a grant of £4000 to start publication of a new writers' magazine for the North. 

We have also been given a significant grant from HI~Arts and a lot of that valuable thing called moral support. So a big thank you to both these organisations for these grants which give us a sound base from which to work.

It will be a quarterly newsprint magazine, says the editor, Rhoda Michael, and it will be called Northwords Now.

The former Northwords Magazine closed early in 2004, and, to some extent, we aim to fill that gap for the many experienced and gifted poets and fiction writers we know to be working in the north.

We also have plans for new approaches to help young writers to get published through our 'Grassroots' section; and for writers newly discovering the joys and sorrows of it at a later age, there will be Writers' Group and Masterclass sections.

Hence our title Northwords Now.

The first issue is planned for November this year. Each issue will have a 5000 print run and will be distributed at pick-up points widely throughout the Highlands and Islands.

Pick-up points? Yes, you will be able to pick it up - free! - at a wide range of outlets from airport lounges to local shops. It's a way of doing it that is catching on!

The Northwords Now team look forward to working, in ways we hope will be 'interactive', with the vigorous community of writers that we know exists across the Highlands and Islands.

For more information, contact the editor, Rhoda Michael, at rhoda8@btopenworld.com  or at 01463 231758.

Submissions should be on typescript to PO Box 5706 Inverness IV1 9AF