RISE – Reading in Secure Environments

Since launching in October 2012, the Reading in Secure Environments (RISE) project has collaborated with seven literature festivals across the UK to bring a number of contemporary writers of excellence to both public audiences and to readers in secure criminal justice and mental health settings.

Funded by the Arts Council, RISE has taken live literary experiences to people who could not otherwise experience them, connecting different audiences to great literature and one another - and has had great impacts on audiences, staff and authors involved, as recently explored at our National Conference 2013, Shared Reading for Healthy Communities.

The first year of RISE has been charted in a film by filmmaker Julian Langham, who visited the RISE Liverpool events in May in conjunction with Writing on the Wall. The film details what RISE is about, the effect it has had on its audiences and features contributions from RISE authors including John Burnside, Jean Sprackland, Joe Dunthorne and Inua Ellams.

You can view the film below, and also on the RISE page on our website. To read more about RISE, including insights from the RISE events and comments from the authors, visit our RISE blog.

RISE - Reading In Secure Environments from Julian Langham on Vimeo.