In this live recording for the Working Class Library podcast Val McDermid will be talking to hosts @clairemalcolm.bsky.social and Richard Benson about the Scottish crime novel that most inspired her – William McIlvanney's Laidlaw. See you there! www.hexhambookfestival.co.uk/event/the-wo...

It took a while to digest Keshed by @stuhennigan.bsky.social , because it's such a big, powerful and important novel. Apart from anything else, it brings home how xlass works on you internally and externally, a combination of feeling and material conditions.

I sometimes wonder if, when someone finds an old coin, say a Roman one, are they first person to touch it since the last Roman person it? Is there a corresponding Roman person 2000 years ago going “Damn, I’ve lost that sodding aureus.”?

Not enough books about darts. Thank you Kit Fielding, I’m going in 🎯

The Bee is hosting an online launch event for Chopsy, with @clairemalcolm, publisher of The Bee and CEO of New Writing North, in conversation with Maya Jordan, and questions from the audience to follow. The event takes place at 7.30pm on Wednesday 25 March 2026.

Growing up in a working-class family in Newcastle, David Olusoga experience devastating economic decline, and racism. Yet he "rejected his rejection", and has come to love his home region, as he explain in an essay in The Bee: thebeemagazine.com/david-olusog...

To write about working-class lives and working-class experience, many writers need to invent a working-class form and style. @dantyte.bsky.social, documenting life in his native South Wales, does just that, with taut, pared-back language that complements his characters’ focus on self-preservation.

Quite rightly singled out by the Observer as one of the best debuts of 2026 – an empathetic evocation of the experience of learning disability, and a brilliant new voice for non-gentrified east London. Read our interview with Lucy Apps here: thebeemagazine.com/lucy-apps-ou...

Our interview with the poptastic memoirist Adelle Stripe, who asked if we could begin with some Smash Hits type questions as well as literary ones is here: thebeemagazine.com/adelle-strip...

The difficulties with Starmer identifying as working class are obvious, but it’s interesting that the biggest objectors are clearly middle class right wing journalists. Most seems incapable of understanding you might base your identity on things other than job & money.

“Wuthering Heights is a story by and about people from below,” writes Richard Benson in a a short history of adaptations of the book. “Millions have identified with it as such for 150 years. Fennell's version takes the pretty bits, and made them into a film for people from above.” bit.ly/wh26x

I love photography work in which the photographer makes themselves parrndo the story, rather than just being the detached eye

The documentary photography of working-class people that gets published tends to show people looking pitiable and/or threatening. We try to challenge that a bit, and Carmina Ripollés is one of the photographers who helps us. Here's her fabulous festive portfolio: thebeemagazine.com/when-were-sm...

Looking forward to columnists exploring further class-related statistical anomalies, such as employed working-class people having to claim benefits to cover basic living expenses.

Had a lot of fun working with Leesa Morris on this, a comic festive disaster story about a working-class woman's first Christmas with her fiancé's middle-class parents. Her observations of rituals and manners from sausage rolls eating to present opening are a yuletide delight 🐝🎄🐝🎄🐝🎄

Born in the Mon Valley, Phillip Bonosky transformed from a devout Catholic into a committed Communist writer, chronicling the struggles of working-class immigrants. Richard Gazarik tells his story. pghrev.com/phillip-bono...

Anyone else noticing “canonical” replacing out “iconic” in ads? I have just watched an an advert for a canonical calendar.

The new episode of our Working Class Library podcast, in which Kevin Barry makes the case for Angela’s Ashes as a working class classic, is out now - on all platforms, and our site - see link here 🐝🐝

This doesn't sound good: www.thebookseller.com/news/waterst... (And it's already terrifying that such an important asset to the UK economy, cultural soft power and to generally making life better is owned by a US hedge-fund.)

Just discovering Thomas Burke, a prolific early 20th c working class writer who joined London Bohemia, and then pointed out that most of the convention-challenging it was so proud of had been/was already being done by working-class Victorians decades earlier. Looking forward to reading more in 2026

Why IS Angela’s Ashes called Angela’s Ashes? Kevin Barry has a theory.

We recorded an episode of the Working Class Library podcast about Angela's Ashes at Hexham Book Festival with Kevin Barry. Kevin's a native of Limerick and his dad knew the McCourts. It was a great conversation & confirmed my belief that AA is an overlooked working-classic. Podcast coming Thursday

Gary Stevenson, author of Trading Game, was responding to Rory Stewart's claim that he was "not an economist", just "a City trader". Gary has a Master of Philosophy degree in Economics from Oxford University.

Quite so ,Mr Doyle

We're proud and excited to say our Working Class Library podcast episode about The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, featuring David Nicholls, is now available on all good podcast platforms, and on our site. We loved doing this, and hope you like it too 🐝

A little taster of the full episode, which we'll be posting on on Monday.

Congratulations to @newlands.bsky.social for this deserved recognition. Tom was on our Writing Chance programme for working-class writers in 2024, and we are very proud for him.

“We live in a time when standards of masculinity are being dictated to us by deeply problematic men.”

I wrote one of the episodes for the newly relaunched Play For Today, which starts tonight (my episode is on in a couple of weeks). This is an article about that . www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

One of our favourites Watch out for our Working Class Library podcast episode about her and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, featuring guest David Nicholls, coming soon. For an introduction, see thebeemagazine.com/a-guide-to-the-secret-diary-of-adrian-mole-aged-13-3-4-by-sue-townsend/

Working-class & comic novels receive little scholarly attention in the UK. Funny working class novels really struggle, however loved they are. Seems less so in Europe, which explains why Sue Townsend's work receives more scholarly attention there. This is nice: www.ethesis.net/townsend/tow...

Our designer David has a game called fantasy classics, where he chooses books he thinks should be published as classics. With him all this way on this one. Look out for an episode of our Working Class Library podcast about it, featuring the great novelist and Mole fan David Nicholls, coming soon.

Now we've closed our first open submissions, we made a little list offering some thoughts on what makes proposals stand out, and where writers might think about tuning them up. thebeemagazine.com/advice-for-w...

We started off looking at social class in Dracula as a bit of fun really, but it's more interesting than you might think. It's fairly well known that vampires were often used to refer to the parasitical rich in the 18th and 19th centuries - in this picture by Walter `Crane.

We'll be recording our episode on class in Dracula at Whitby Lit Fest in November. Join us if you dare 🧛🏻‍♀️ whitbylitfest.org.uk/event/the-wo...

We'll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of this modern working-class classic on Wednesday, with @helenmort.bsky.social . If you're in the area, join us if you can 🍊

RIP Tony Harrison. One of the great 20th-century British poets and indescribably inspiring to working-class writers "Next millennium you'll have to search quite hard to find my slab behind the family dead, butcher, publican, and baker, now me, bard adding poetry to their beef, beer and bread."

"I don’t think I’ll ever really be middle-class," says Stephen Tuffin. It’s like being British and going abroad – I tell other middle-class people I’m just there in their world as a visitor.” Read his heartbreaking short story about a boy left alone with his father when his mum leaves, here:

Really enjoyed this from @damianbarr.bsky.social Such a good understanding of how social class doesn’t just influence lives, but also silences voices. Damian unions how that works, and how it feels.

One Conservative commentator says it's time we stopped "sanctifying" "working-class credentials" 😐 It's one of those moments when you realise some middle class people's idea of what being working class involves doesn't have much to do with reality. thebeemagazine.com/are-working-...

One reason literature tends to be seen as “middle class” is working-class writers and books being class-washed – presented and adapted in ways that strip out their working-class identity. Lark Rise to Candleford is a prime example.

Becka White, you may remember, is a working-class writer from south-east London with a rare gift for combining the personal and the political in her work. We published her story In Search of the Perfect Mushroom Omelette in July. This time, she has written a coruscating critique of local...

In order to want to save the planet, a person must feel they belong in it. Yet Black people are often told they do not belong in certain places.

Come one, come all.

We're proud to publish @darrenmcgarvey.bsky.social on the UK's health lottery & why health inequality is a political choice. Right now there's a lot of bogus blaming in the news that distracts from real issues like this. This is an honest assessment, based on real experience.