Seven Stories is thrilled to announce the addition of David Almond’s archive to our collection!

The impressive archive includes the full creative process for Skellig, from first concepts through annotated manuscripts to final draft as well as notebooks featuring plot line ideas for The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean, A Song for Ella Grey and The Savage. Notes for unpublished works also dotted throughout the extensive archive, alongside an almost complete unpublished novel.

David, a patron of Seven Stories, said, “The National Centre for Children’s Books acquiring my collection just seems natural; Seven Stories is a wonderful North East institution and this is where it should be. I am a North Eastern writer who writes about the North East, where better could it be? For part of Seven Stories to exist in Felling, where I grew up and where so many of my stories are set, feels synchronous and very beautiful.”

A Heritage Lottery Fund grant from its Collecting Cultures programme was instrumental in securing the collection.

David’s collection will feature in our 2018 programme of events and pieces from the collection will be on display in a new exhibition entitled Where My Wings Were, Journeys with David Almond, opening June 2018 as part of the Great Exhibition of the North.