This May, I’ll be teaching my first course at The Poetry School on taboos. I am beyond excited! This blog post, which explores my ideas and motivations for running this course, was originally published on their website. You can read it here or check it out there. Thank you! A few years ago I read…
Category: Memoir
Dying Matters
‘Dying Matters Awareness Week’ in the UK ended yesterday. For those who don’t know, Dying Matters is a coalition of 32,000 members across England and Wales — including the NHS, bereavement charities, social service organisations, academic bodies and more — which aims to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, and to…
GUEST POST: The point of the first question
During my teaching exchange in Finland, I met so many bright, passionate and talented people. But there were two women in particular whose stories and creativity really spoke to me. I have asked both of them to write guest posts for my blog about themselves, their fathers, their writing and more. Please enjoy the first…
Semi-Detached
My last post was in May and a lot has happened since then. Summer is my busiest season and as work for my day job, PhD and freelance projects increased my blog posts and personal writing took a reluctant back seat. Luckily, things are cooling down, both literally and figuratively, and I can now take…
Places to Inspire Writing in Cardiff
Originally posted on Welsh Writers’ Trust:
All writers have experienced that dearth of inspiration; the time when we scrabble through articles in newspapers, sift through old diaries and scour every object that surrounds us to find something, anything, that might spark some much craved creativity. In those trying times when nothing seems to mean anything…
Memory
Last month I led my first Death Writing session of 2015. Participants of different backgrounds, ages and experiences came together to discuss their relationship with memory, write about significant objects and places, and compose poems for people they’d lost. One of the attendees, the lovely Jodie Kay Ashdown, has kindly posted the piece she wrote…
Letting Go
My best friend growing up was a painter. She had long wild hair and enjoyed a command over colors that I never had. I always admired her and, once, when she was abroad at an art college in Rome I sat in the extension of her parent’s house and got lost in her canvases –…
Cam wrth Gam – Step by Step
I have always believed that people should follow their passions – find the thing they love and do it with as much energy and dedication they can muster. This belief often makes me a difficult party guest. I ignore the small talk and ask questions instead, try to uncover what the person uncomfortably holding their…
Interview with Clare Potter
Originally posted on Welsh Writers’ Trust:
Clare Potter is a poet, playwright, collaborator and educator, originally harking from Blackwood, South Wales. She taught and lived for several years in New Orleans, where she was a consultant for the New Orleans Writing Project. Her collection, ‘spilling histories’ (Cinnamon, 2006), is based around the Hurricane Katrina disaster.…
Writing Our Lives
Both Anne Lamott and Sharon Olds taught me to write what I know. Before I read their work I did this by composing journal entries and secret stories which I hid in a blue tub under my bed. After I read their work I continued to write what I knew, just more often and publicly,…
Christina Thatcher 