City of Literature title bid for Nottingham

A reading flashmob was organised in Nottingham city centre last year

A bid for Nottingham to be chosen as a world City of Literature has been submitted.

The application by a team including the city council shows off the area's "huge range of literary excellence".

Its literary heritage includes links to writers Lord Byron, DH Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe.

An announcement will be made in December by UNESCO on whether Nottingham will join its Creative Cities Network.

Nottingham's Lord Mayor Jackie Morris has written a letter to accompany the bid and said the past 25 years had seen "an explosion" of novels, poetry, play and spoken word in the city.

She said: "We see literature, culture and creativity as the driving force behind the transformation of our city in the next 20 years to become a thriving international city."

There are currently eleven cities of literature - Edinburgh, Dublin, Norwich, Melbourne, Iowa City, Reykjavík, Krakow, Dunedin, Heidelberg, Granada and Prague.