Write yourself wise: new workshops for 2025
The Writers Workshop welcomes Emma Garrard as a new associate, starting in 2025. Emma is a philosophy graduate, a Biblio/Poetry therapist, and a psychotherapist with 16 years’ experience. She trained with the International Academy of Poetry Therapy and now offers a range of therapeutic creative writing groups to promote well-being. From the New Year, Emma will be offering a new monthly workshop focused on writing for well-being and self-exploration. We asked her to tell us more about what’s in store. Look out for the first event on our website, or follow the Writers Workshop Eventbrite account for updates.
Write Yourself Wise Workshops
Who am I? What gives life meaning and purpose? What should I do with my life? These are all questions that we can answer for ourselves, if only we can find the time, space and means to discover our own truths. Creative writing is one such way in to self-discovery.
This creative writing workshop invites you to explore life’s biggest questions. Each session provides a set of prompts from which to “write yourself wise”, including poetry, prose, images, art, or objects, to help us tap into our inner wisdom, finding answers for ourselves, or simply creatively exploring the things that matter most in our lives. Themes will include love, meaning, community, identity, hope, spirituality, truth, freedom, impermanence and loss.
There are many wise people in the world, with many and varied answers to the complex questions that we all have to ask ourselves to form our self-view. The wisest of all these people is YOU. This workshop begins from the premise that each of us is the expert on our own lives. We may draw from the wisdom of others, but their wise words and actions only make sense to us when they resonate with our own deep inner knowing.
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is for anyone with an interest in writing for well-being. The purpose of each session is to enable self-exploration, self-understanding, and self-expression. The emphasis is on content and process, rather than “literary merit”. In other words, no attention is given to the skills or style of your writing, the genre you choose, or your spelling, punctuation and grammar. We are interested in what you have to say, not how well you say it. We are interested in what you think and feel, not how well those thoughts and feelings are communicated. Of course, you might produce wonderful pieces of writing in these sessions, especially when you’re writing from the heart, but learning literary craft is not the purpose of the group.
There is never any pressure to share your writing with others either. These groups provide an opportunity to develop an “intimacy with self” through writing. While sharing can deepen self-knowledge, and the invitation is always there to share, some people prefer to keep their words for themselves, which is always okay.