A FORMER journalist is championing Cumbrian authors and artists with his own literary website.

Tom Woods, from Kendal, launched Words Wild after being made redundant during the pandemic and deciding he wanted to promote Cumbria’s authors past and present.

After spending a year working on the website he launched in December.

The Westmorland Gazette:

“It gave me a bit of time to reflect on what’s important to me,” he said.

“And that’s when this idea came to set up this website.

“I thought well I love books, I always have done, why don’t I set up something myself that celebrates this great county and all the great literature that’s coming out of it?

“Everyone knows the Lake District for its beautiful scenery and for being a World Heritage site and I wanted to know it has a huge cultural scene as well.

“Not only am I selling a full range of Cumbrian books, fiction, non-fiction, outdoors and nature, I’ve also got a blog and what’s on pages, with the idea of creating a platform to create local artists-anything from painters, crafters and musicians.

“I just want to promote that creative side that I’ve seen here.”

The Westmorland Gazette:

And the 38-year-old has received plenty of positive feedback from customers so far.

“I’ve had really good feedback from customers because they can see my packaging is plastic free and they’re really engaged with the website and can see I’m offering something different,” he said.

“I want to promote local communities.”

Before settling in Kendal in 2019 Mr Woods was a journalist in London and Spain.

“I did a journalism diploma in London and I decided I’d head out to Spain to work for a newspaper out there,” he said.

“It wasn’t a long-term plan and I soon decided I wanted to settle in beautiful Cumbria.”