I'm officially retired, improving my sewing and growing skills, reading and writing. I'm paid a state pension. It's not riches, but I've worked non-stop for 44 years and I need a break. How I've spent some of that time earning enough to keep myself and family going is below. The older stuff, jobbing journalism and so on, is ancient history. I'm proud of a book I helped designer Rasshied Din write, On Retail. But like everyone, I've done all sorts, from Air BnB when I was so burned out I could do nothing more than wash sheets, a bit of cleaning, work with language students, commercial writing, paid per word writing, proof reading, editing, assistant lecturing - hourly paid, insecure. I consolidate some of my time facilitating creative writing workshops in The Workshop Handbook which has turned into On Poetry. I keep my hand in, but while living as a freelancer for decades has given me freedom to work a four day week and largely from home, it's exhausting. For all that time I had no paid holidays, no sick pay, no maternity leave, no compassionate leave, no sabbaticals etc.
2023
Online expressive writing workshop series for the Sussex Recovery College in association with the Royal Literary Fund.
Workshop, Tunbridge Wells, summer.
2022
On Poetry - final drafts, editing, launch.
2021
I've been running an online reading group for a residential CAMHS centre in Colchester in the most recent months of lockdown - six weeks at the end of 2020 and another couple of months in 2021. It's the most enjoyable work I've ever done, largely down to the support I've had from the centre and the Royal Literary Fund, which has paid and trained me.
I first ran a running a reading group in a CAMHS ward for the RLF in 2018. I was based in Haywards Heath, Princess Royal Hospital, for two years. When Covid 19 began, the RLF pulled all the lectors out - there were six of us around the country.
I've done other online work during lockdown - workshops for the Poetry Business and a chunky lot of work for Disability Arts Surrey again (following on from the Apple Project in summer 2019). Daisy's Regrowth Project (link here) involved me creating online writing workshops for two groups in Farnham and Bookham over three months and recording podcasts for people who were isolating.
But the pressure lifted a little at the end of January 2021 when I was at last eligible to claim my state pension. I can pay the bills, just (I was one of many who got nothing from HMRC despite being self-employed most of my working life).
2019-2020
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| Group poem by The Grange for The Apple Project |
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| By Lorenzo Barbieri |
We created booklets and visual poems. There's more information about The Apple Project here.
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| From The Apple Project by Laura |
2018
In 2018 I ran a workshop for
entrepreneurs in Bristol and began the reading group for young people with mental health problems, both for the Royal Literary Fund.
I joined Writing Project, a consultancy of former RLF
Fellows working with charities and the
public or private sector after a year of training on delivering workshops for business and entrepreneurs.
AND THE REST.......
In November 2015 I co-tutored the Aldeburgh 8 with
Peter Sansom of The Poetry Business. It's an opportunity for poets who
are starting to publish their work to spend a weekend at the Aldeburgh
Festival and a week together in a rural retreat with the two of us. Peter's
co-tutor for years has been Michael Laskey but he needed to take time off for
his own writing.
Creative writing workshops with adults and in business
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| Writing with patients at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in spring 2013 for a choreography project with Rambert Dance |
Brighton and Sussex Medical School (GPs/students), Cardboard Citizens at St Mungo’s hostel, Earl’s Court, Barbican workshop for teachers, Marks & Spencer plc, Imberhorne School, INSET – East Grinstead, Arts Council of England Enquire programme, The Writer, Fabrica Gallery, Brighton,
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| Arts and Business south east: Creating Partnerships brochure |
Eurotunnel (winner of Arts Business SE 2006 award for best use of the arts), Unilever/Lever Faberge (shortlisted for the 2007 Arts and Business Employee Awards), Surrey University, PPP Healthcare, Clifford Chance, West Sussex CC Museum curators, Common Purpose, Arts & Business SE,
University of Sussex, University of Chichester creative writing students (MA), De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, Mole Valley Poets, Slipstream Poets, Billingshurst, Arvon Foundation Devon & Somerset, Ty Newydd the National Writers' Centre of Wales.
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| Ty Newydd, The National Writers' Centre of Wales |
Creative writing workshops with schools and young people
Gatton Park Education Trust,
Surrey, Arts Council of England Enquire programme, Creative Partnerships, Adur
Festival, Poetry Society (Poet in the City project), Poetry Trust (Aldeburgh
Poetry festival outreach), East & West Sussex CC Gifted and Talented programme,
East Brighton, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Peckham Education Action Zones
Bethnal Green Technology College, East Sussex Young Carers, Horsham Festival, Chichester Festival Theatre, Ty Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales.
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In March 2015 I worked with 240 pupils - the whole of year 7 - at Seaford Head school in Sussex to produce poems based on photos of local species. Each child had her or his own species and I used metaphors and similes from poems by Ted Hughes as a model for how they could describe their species. They ranged from piddocks to dragonflies, the raven, badger and fox, to a rare bat and an otter, from cuckoo spit to the bee orchid and lichens. |
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| A book of poems produced by Hackney Education Action Zone in July 2002 after a Poetry Society project that placed three poets in primary schools: Jackie Wills, Paul Lyalls and Anne Rouse. |
Bethnal Green Technology College, East Sussex Young Carers, Horsham Festival, Chichester Festival Theatre, Ty Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales.
Employment
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| Surrey Advertiser, Martyr Road, Guildford. Photo: Fred Pipes |
• Royal Literary Fund Reading Round Lector at Fabrica Gallery, Brighton, 2014-15
• Tutor for Creative Writing Programme, New Writing South, 2013-2015
• Literature assessor, Arts Council England
• Freelance writer/editor (including: Guardian Sustainable Business Awards 2012-15, Allen and Overy international partners conference, Monaco 2012, London Business School)
• Tutor for Creative Writing Programme, New Writing South, 2013-2015
• Literature assessor, Arts Council England
• Freelance writer/editor (including: Guardian Sustainable Business Awards 2012-15, Allen and Overy international partners conference, Monaco 2012, London Business School)
• Royal Literary Fund Fellow, University of Sussex Sept
10-May 12
• Royal Literary Fund Fellow, University of Surrey Sept
09-May10
• Brand positioning, Whittard of Chelsea, 2009/10
• University of Chichester, associate lecturer, MA
creative writing Oct-Dec 09
• University College, Falmouth, writer, history of the
organisation (08-9)
• University College, Falmouth, copywriter, strategic
policy (08)
• Copywriting/research, Creamer and Lloyd/Unilever/Arts
Council of England (08)
• Copywriting/editing, Chartered Institute of
Environmental Health (08)
• Copywriting/editing, KPMG (08)
• Copywriting, Chartered Institute of Housing (08)
• Writing tutor in business,
schools, community since 1999.
• Associate
lecturer, Creative Writing, Open University, since Dec. 05
•
Freelance copywriter/editor: WordWorks, Institute of Housing, Hub 100, Phoenix
Fund, Oyster Healthcare, University of Cambridge
•
External Examiner, Department of English and American Studies, The University
of Manchester, 1999 – 2000.
•
Researcher Channel 4 Programme support, 2002
•
Columnist, Times Educational Supplement, September - December 2000.
• Features
editor/writer for miscellaneous business and special interest magazines,
including Local Government Chronicle, Draper’s Record, Retail Week, Times
Educational Supplement, New Socialist June 1986 - June 1999.
• Highly Commended, Periodical
Publishers Association Hill Samuel Writer of the Year (Business and
Professional Magazines) May 1994.
• LOGIS
Local Government Journalist of the Year (Journals) July 1991.
• LOGIS
Local Government Feature Writer of the Year (Journals) July 1990.
•
November 1985 - June 1986, reporter, INS News Agency, Reading.
• October 1978 - November
1985, reporter, Surrey Advertiser, Guildford.
