About

FENWOMEN borrows its name from Mary Chamberlain’s Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village first published by Virago Press in 1975. In Fenwomen, Chamberlain chronicled the lives of several generations of women from one village in the Cambridgeshire fens, — their sense of belonging (or not), community, labour and social isolation — as well as their relationship to their surroundings. Shrouded in a mythology of remoteness, this region is perceived to be on the fringes of society and culture; fringes, which owing to coastal erosion, are in a constant state of flux.

The event series began as a response to Chamberlain's text, but each iteration roams further from her initial proposition, drawing together writers, artists and musicians who form a rich and varied reimagining not just of the fenlands but of the entire region and beyond. And although these writers roam far, they share an intention: to disrupt conventional notions of place-based writing. 

Each event is loosely themed and forms a chapter on the website, featuring contributions by some of the country's best writers, and building to a body of work for a print anthology in the coming years.

A Manifesto

FENWOMEN, centuries of them, conceives of itself as an ever evolving process rather than a structure…

a process of gathering voices from across East Anglia and inviting others in

a process of gleaning materials from the periphery and frayed edges of language — what man and machine fails to reap

a process of galvanising an audience and a community of writers and readers

a process of commissioning new works and encouraging works in progress

a process of envisioning a different literary landscape for the region

a process of platforming new writing, writers

a process of inviting others in and creating cultural and regional exchange

a process of hybridisation, imagining literature beyond the page, and words — in music, film and visual arts.

a process of resistance, akin to the Fen Tigers

a process of identifying with women, beyond gender conventions

FENWOMEN COMMITTEE

FENWOMEN is run by a voluntary committee:

Rose Higham-Stainton is a writer and critic and the founder of FENWOMEN, whose work explores gender, material culture, and man's construction of nature. She is a contributor to Flash Art, Mousse, LA Review of Books, ArtReview, TANK, Texte zur Kunst, The White Review, Art Monthly and Worms Magazine among others. Rose has written catalogue essays and texts for the likes of Amy Sillman, Lynda Benglis, Ryan Gander and Maeve Brennan and in early 2026 was a resident at Jan Michalski Foundation, Switzerland.

Deirdre Canavan is a researcher, writer and audio producer. Originally from Belfast and now based in Norwich, she has recently finished an AHRC-funded doctorate in post-conflict women's writing from the North of Ireland and is co-producer of EELS, the eastern experimental listening service.

Hannah Levene is a writer living in Norwich. Her novel Greasepaint is out now with Nightboat Books. Her novel, A Pizza Hut A Pizza Hut Kentucky Fried Chicken and A Pizza Hut is out now with Cipher Press. She has a PhD in Creative Writing exploring the composition of new butch literature.

Katie J Barlow is an artist, researcher and educator. She is currently undertaking an illustration PhD with Kingston University. The research explores the entanglement of textiles and comics as a generative framework for presenting embodied identities and nondominant social histories. This archival enquiry centres material histories in Norfolk with a focus on making by hand as a key site of labour and resistance.

Milly Reilly is a literary agent based in Norwich. She represents literary fiction and a broad range of non-fiction with authors including Melek Erdal, Dr Annabel Sowemimo and Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad of The White Pube.