If you’re short on time, write a haiku! These tiny poems are also brilliant to capture a moment, image or fragment when you’re struggling to put an experience into words.
Writing haiku is also brilliant practice for:
Mindfulness. It can help you notice nature and what’s around you. It also helps you capture the essence of a moment.
Editing. It helps you cut out any extra words you don’t need to focus on the most powerful ones.
Getting to the heart of what you want to say. If you’re struggling to write the next chapter of your novel or a short story or episode of your memoir, it can be helpful to sum up what you’re trying to say with a haiku. This will be a reminder when you go off on a tangent or get lost in description.
Gratitude. Writing a haiku each day helps you remember the best parts of the day and can be a diary in itself.
Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry. There are many rules, but to begin with concentrate on writing a short poem with three lines. Some people like to follow a count of syllables. If you’d like to try this, then the first line has 5 syllables, the second 7 syllables, and the third 5 syllables.
For inspiration, look at the work of Hifsa Ashraf, who used haiku to write about domestic violence against women: Her Fading Henna Tattoo.
Objects carry the weight of so many stories and emotions. They can be brilliant inspiration for writing. Clothes, hats, shoes, accessories or even tiny buttons are great for developing characters. Or pick something from nature – rocks, leaves or shells. These are great for fostering connection to the natural world, inspiring memories and practising description.
To begin
Find an object. It may be something precious you carry with you or pick something when you’re out on a walk, or something you’re drawn to at a charity shop. Maybe it’s old and you don’t know the previous owner, or maybe you wonder who made it. Describe the object with all your senses – what does it smell, feel, sound, taste, look like?
Write a letter to the object. Start Dear [object]…. You can give it a name! Include a question, or more than one.
Have the object respond to you. Write what the object has always wanted to say to you. Dear [your name]….
Go deeper
Sit with the questions. Leave them unanswered if you want to or answer them. Read through your description and your letters. Underline phrases you like. Write these out on a fresh page. See if something resembling a poem emerges. Or pick one phrase and go deeper. Freewrite from that phrase for 15 or 20 minutes.
If the emotion you feel when you consider the object leads you to a character, answer these questions and finish the sentence starters to find out more about them:
How old are they?
What do they look like? – Just jot down some notes.
Where do they live?
Give them a name.
What do other people remember most about them?
They are the sort of person who…
They want most of all to…
You’ll never believe this, but once they…
Every day, they…
They are so scared they’ll…
They love…
Last week, they…
Finally
Put this writing away for a while and notice which ideas stick, which images you keep coming back to in your mind, which voice is begging to be heard and next time you sit down with your pen and paper, start with the most insistent image, voice or idea.
I love the smell of you just before bathing, the earth that clings to your skin, your skin scrubbed and peeled, salted and eaten raw, prelude to the flesh inside,
pale flesh, multitudinous pleasures, tender and hot, steam rising from the slit, coarse, squashy, and fluffy, requiring a ritual of preparation, the recklessness of butter.
Bit of a bother, actually, and rather dull on your own, always in need of enhancement. Sliced and diced, mingled with cheddar, sautéed, and restuffed into your skin, the Marilyn Monroe of potatoes.
As I clutch you, plump and firm, in my palm, I recall your humble roots, your poisonous leaves, you among potato pickers, a crude tuber, feeding so many mouths, sidekick to fried hunks of fish.
You are a fat, dirty spud, a misshapen blob of starch, carbohydrates, and useless calories, disreputable nightshade, consort to blight and famine.
Some days I think you are merely a side dish. Nights I suffer the pangs of starvation, tantalized by dreams of french fries, my mouth stuffed with crisp strips of gold.
When I was 7, and walking home from school (alone), an old man starting walking with me, just a few minutes from my house. I didn’t want him there, but I didn’t know how to tell him not to be. We arrived at my house, and my mum ran out from the front door and down the path, grabbing me. She saw us both at the front window and was worried. She said she “didn’t know who the hell he was”.
When I was 13, I used to catch a regular bus to and from school. My best friend used to catch it with me at the end of the school day, but she’d stay on an extra few stops as she lived in the next village from me. We used to say hello to the bus driver. One day, he wasnt driving the bus home, but when she got off her stop, he was waiting for her in his car at her stop. She asked him what he was doing there, and he told her “Im waiting for you”. She told me about it the next day. Neither of us knew what we could do about it, so we didn’t do anything.
When I was 25 I was sat on a train in a quiet carriage. A man, a similar age, came and sat opposite me, and spread out his legs (like all men do) so I was trapped. He starting talking to me. I pointed out that his stance was intimidating, that he was trapping me in. He said he had no idea, and moved his legs. Then he asked me out for a drink (I said no thankyou).
When I was 32, I was walking home from work, my university campus, to the train station, and a lad – walking with his two friends – shout “I can smell your vag” as he walks past me. I wonder if I misheard (though I know I didn’t) and I wondered what I could do about it (though I knew there was nothing).
At the same workplace, at a similar time, I was in the reception area, signing a form, when my (male) boss came up behind me and grabbed my waist. I spun around and said, very loudly, “I can’t believe that you just did that!”. He started back sheepishly and walked off. I looked over at the witnesses, a row of 3 women who worked in admin. “I can’t believe he just did that” I said again, this time to them. They said nothing. Just shrugged.
I could write more, and actually about much more serious incidents, involving those who were close to me, partners and family members, but it is too difficult. So I have decided to write about a few incidents that meant the least – that were the least harmful, that caused no obvious physical or psychological injury. The everyday stuff.
What they have in common is that they all made me feel under threat, and all involved men, and none would have happened if I had been a man.
A creative workshop inviting you to explore memory and imagination to make a paper object that can be used to unfold lived experiences. Individual and collaborative activities will be facilitated to build trust and develop a safe space in which to play, create and reflect. In the process, participants will be invited to share as much, or as little, of their personal stories as they wish. You are encouraged to bring personal photos, found images and printed text to the workshop. No previous experience is needed. We will need your address to send some basic materials (A4 white card, craft knife, tracing paper, coloured paper and a piece of ribbon).
You will need to bring: A ruler/straight edge Pencil Coloured pens/pencils/crayons Scissors Glue for sticking paper Magazines/newspapers/postcards/old books/ anything you are willing to cut up
Miranda Gavin is an artist/activist, educator and writer—specialising in photography. She recently curated and was a participating artist in Gaslighting, an online art exhibition showcasing the work of artists who have had experience of domestic abuse. Miranda has facilitated participatory photography workshops with diverse groups including street sleepers in London and children with special needs in Peru. Her personal website can be found at www.outsideherart.com.
In our daily lives we are immersed in story. In every conversation we have, every social media post we read, every television advert we watch, let alone every box set we consume, we engage with storytelling.
We tell stories and we listen to stories as a way of making sense of the world and our place in it.
In this workshop we will use story as a means to explore our lived experience. Through a series of writing exercises we will, as Dorothea Brande puts it in her 1934 book Becoming a Writer, turn the fiction maker’s eye on ourselves.
No writing experience is necessary – these workshops are open to all. This will be a warm and welcoming space in which to connect with others as well as connecting with your own creative self. In these workshops, you are in control of the story you want to tell.
No equipment is necessary apart from a pen and paper or laptop or the notes app on your phone.
Dr Hannah Vincent is a novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her first novel Alarm Girl was published in 2014 and she wrote her second The Weaning in 2018 as part of PhD research in autobiographic practice at the University of Sussex. Her short story collection, She-Clown and Other Stories was published in 2020. Hannah is an experienced workshop leader, teaching creative writing, creative non-fiction and life writing across several institutions including The Open University, New Writing South and Charleston. She is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Brighton.
“And so when you have lost everything, no more roads, no direction, no fixed signs, no ground, no thoughts able to resist other thoughts, when you are lost, beside yourself, and you continue getting lost…it’s in these breathless times that writings traverse you, songs of an unheard-of purity flow through you, addressed to no one, they well up, surge forth.”
Hélène Cixous, Coming to Writing and Other Essays
Maps can help you find your way, remind you of where you’ve been, create a relationship with a new or old place and help you tell your story. This workshop takes a place of your choice as a starting point, and after outlining your own map, you will use all of your senses to write memories and moments as they flow into each other, take twists and turns and follow their own journey.
This workshop uses maps toinspire stories and offers a safe space to write, share and come up with new creative ideas.
No previous experience is needed of writing or drawing.
You will need some paper, a pen or pencil and a willingness to try new things!
Mel Parks is a writer and researcher at the University of Brighton and is an experienced creative writing mentor and workshop facilitator. Mel developed and delivers The Writer’s Notebook – a series of creative writing workshops to celebrate and enjoy the writing process. Her research values creative practice, story and autoethnography and she specialises in the maternal, building on 20 years’ experience writing about children and families. She also works with stories of place, landscape, myths and fairytales. Find out more about her work.
This workshop will use a combination of stitch* and text to support the telling and sharing of stories about your lived experiences. You will be supported to write poetry and prose from different perspectives and think about your relationship to domestic spaces. You will also be invited to stitch onto a duster as a means of connecting with your domestic space and exploring associated memories and experiences. The workshop will offer a safe space to discuss and make and to think about our stories as an act of resistance.
*we will need your address to send the sewing materials to you
Vanessa Marr is an artist, designer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. Her academic and creative work takes a critical view of the hidden language of objects and fairy tales, which she explores primarily through embroidery and creative writing. Her ongoing practice-based collaborative arts project ‘Women & Domesticity – What’s your Perspective?’ references traditional ‘women’s work’ and invites people to embroider their own perspectives and experiences of domesticity onto a duster. The growing collection includes over 100 contributions. It has been exhibited and presented widely in academic, community and arts contexts. Vanessa regularly participates in collaborative and creative projects and never stops learning, making and writing. https://domesticdusters.wordpress.com/ Instagram: @domesticdusters
Dr Jess Moriarty is Principal Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Brighton. She is an experienced researcher and Editor for the book series, Performance and Communities. She has published extensively on creative writing pedagogy, autoethnography and community engagement. Her current book, the Creative Recovery Handbook, explores creative practice as a method for supporting well-being. Her pedagogic approach has a focus on diversity, personal story-telling and writing for change. Jessica Moriarty — The University of Brighton
Walking is holistic: every aspect of it aids every aspect of one’s wellbeing. Walking provides us with a multisensory reading of the world in all its shapes, forms, sounds and feelings, for it uses the brain in multiple ways.
(O’Mara, 2019: 3)
There is a clear link between walking and well-being and that also, there is therapeutic aspect of writing, drawing and making. For this workshop we will meet at the entrance of Stanmer Park Stanmer Park (brighton-hove.gov.uk) and take part in a series of walks and writing exercises that will help you to connect with the landscape and your own creativity. You will be given activities and ideas to support you with writing poetry and prose that might be rooted in your autobiographical experiences. The workshop will offer a safe outdoor space to talk, walk and create. Please bring water, a pen and paper and some suitable walking shoes.
Dr Jess Moriarty is Principal Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Brighton. She is an experienced researcher and Editor for the book series, Performance and Communities. She has published extensively on creative writing pedagogy, autoethnography and community engagement. Her current book, the Creative Recovery Handbook, explores creative practice as a method for supporting well-being. Her pedagogic approach has a focus on diversity, personal story-telling and writing for change. Jessica Moriarty — The University of Brighton
