Is it harder for Northerners to have their voices heard in literature and comedy because of age-old regional biases? That's the question on The Northern Agenda podcast this week with two guests who've explored that thorny topic with academic rigour. Jen Bowden, a journalist and writer from a small pit village called Wingate in County Durham, hosts the Northern Voices podcast but is also working on her PhD looking at the use of Northern dialect in contemporary UK fiction and biases against the North in the UK book industry. And poet, author and comedian Kate Fox, who was born in Bradford and grew up in Yorkshire and Cumbria, has a book out called Where There’s Muck, There’s Bras: True Stories of the Amazing Women of the North. Her PhD looked at a similar subject, namely why it’s harder for Northern comedians to be heard due to age old biases. In conversation with The Northern Agenda's Daniel J. McLaughlin, himself a stand-up poet in Manchester, they discuss the unconscious biases standing in the way of people from the North trying to tell their stories on a national stage.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices