I have led creative writing workshops on a range of topics for wildly differing participants in a wide variety of settings. I have written poetry with primary schoolchildren in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter; produced ranting polemic and heartfelt memoir with graduate students on the MSc in Environmental Change & Management; and sat with cancer patients in the Oxford Maggie’s Centre as they set down sense-impressions and reminiscence for those they most loved. For 3 years, between 2007 and 2009, I ran writing workshops at the Oxford Literary Festival on themes of climate change and social justice.
I have worked with participants who identify strongly as ‘writers’ (as a visiting lecturer at Ruskin College and the University of Oxford) but also with those for whom the prospect of putting pen to paper can be terrifying.
I believe that what we write can surprise us. It can stimulate interaction and bring us into deeper relationship with one another. I believe that creative writing offers a window on our innermost selves. It can shed light on aspects of the self that we’re reluctant to reveal, and challenge us to set down thoughts and feelings that we’ve never dared articulate.
I also think it can be FUN!
I can be contacted here.