Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, is doing like Dave Eggers has done with his 826 writing centers in the states. Hornby's Ministry of Stories will get kids writing again.
From the piece in the Guardian...
Now the bestselling novelist Nick Hornby wants to do the same thing for Britain. Tomorrow, Hornby, along with art entrepreneurs Ben Payne and Lucy Macnab, is going open his new Ministry of Stories – plus the world's first supply store for monsters.
The author hopes that a fantastical shopfront will lure children into something rather less fantastical, if no less fun: literacy lessons. In the shop, Hornby will sell "fang floss" and "human snot", while round the back novelists including Zadie Smith, Roddy Doyle and Michael Morpurgo might, on the right day, be found teaching children aged from eight to 18 to learn to write a little like they do.
If all of this volunteering sounds a bit like that "big society" thing, then you are not alone. In fact, Downing Street is so impressed with the venture that next week it is throwing Hornby and co a party in No 10.
Hornby's Ministry of Stories will open tomorrow in a patch of real estate in Hoxton, east London, and is funded by the Arts Council.
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