Gift to the UEA

Unpublished poetry, notebooks and letters by the environmentalist and nature writer Roger Deakin have been donated to the University of East Anglia. Roger died of brain cancer in 2006 aged 63. His archive was stored in a dozen crates at his Mellis, Suffolk, home.

One wonders where and how unpublished work is stored by writers throughout the world? What will happen when the sad demise comes? Will your work be saved, perhaps published or donated to a university? Or will it just be one of the many items that will be destroyed?

Where do you keep your unpublished work? On a computer? In hardback? At the bottom of a wardrobe? Sometimes it might be saved by a loving family member, or given away to another writer.

Perhaps the time is right to decide what you wish done with the hundreds of hours of lifetime work when the inevitable happens. Could it be used to help others? It really is food for thought!