All workshops are FREE to attend but places are limited so you are advised to register your interest early.
During the month of May 2022, there are a variety of exciting free writing workshops taking place in Ealing and online. These workshops welcome everyone with an interest in or curious about writing, and using words to foster connection, communication, and creativity, with the purpose of promoting emotional health and enjoyment.
The writing workshops will take place at the OPEN Ealing Arts Centre, located at Dickens Yard, a vibrant new urban quarter in the heart of Ealing. A few of our workshops will take place in other venues in Ealing as well.
Writing workshops will also take place online which you can attend from the comfort of your own home wherever you are in the world.
Don’t worry if you have not attended a writing workshop before. No formal creative or other writing experience is needed. All you need is an open mind, a notebook, a pen, and the willingness to give writing a go.
How to Book a Workshop
You can book a workshop via Eventbrite using the links below. We understand that sometimes registering for an event is not always an easy process. So, if you would rather book by email please contact us at info@ealingwritingtrail.com stating the workshop date and time.
Please arrive 10 minutes prior to the workshop. If, for whatever reason you are unable to attend a writing workshop that you have booked, please let us know within 48 hours so that we can offer your place to someone on the waiting list.
The Ealing Writing Trail brings together an exciting line up of writing workshops from fantastic creative practitioners in the arena of medical humanities, psychology, sociology, creative writing and many more!
Unless otherwise stated, workshops are designed for individuals aged 18+.
​
Day: Tuesday 10th May 2022
Time: 12:00PM - 1:30PM (90 minutes)
Venue: Online
Workshop Title: Unexplored Paths
Workshop Leader: Dr Marc Boaz
Booking: Going Live Soon!
This creative writing workshop explores the real and imagined junctures in people’s lives. The paths we have walked down and the lives we have lived, and the unexplored paths that we have moved past and those that we can rediscover and remain open to us.
Using guided visualisations, drawing and writing experiments, the workshop explores our potential to examine our real or imagined unexplored and unknown paths.
Preparation: Participants are asked to bring paper, coloured pens or pencils if they wish. They can also use an online word programme for the writing exercises if they want.
Day: Wednesday 11th May 2022
Time: 12:00PM - 1:30PM (90 minutes)
Venue: Online
Workshop Title: Building a story layer by layer
Workshop Leader: Nikki Dudley
Booking: Going Live Soon!
Using photo prompts (that will be sent to attendees via email in advance) and layered activities to create and develop a short story in various ways, led by published writer, Nikki Dudley. By the end of the session, you should have at least one piece of fiction piece to toke away with you.
​
Important information for you to know: This session welcomes individuals aged 16+
Date: Sunday 15th May 2022
Time: 2PM - 4PM (2 hours)
Venue: OPEN Ealing
Workshop Title: Visual Poetry: The Art of the Poetry Collage
Workshop Leader: Dr Emma Filtness
Booking: Going Live Soon!
In this two-hour practical workshop, we’ll explore the relationship between poetry and collage, creating new works from a curated selection of texts, images and paper ephemera. We’ll layer and juxtapose images, and excerpt and arrange fragments of texts, making a visual poem that is designed to be both seen and read. Whilst some tools and materials will be provided, participants are welcome to bring their own scissors, glue stick, and any paper-based materials they’re keen to work with and happy to cut up – old magazines, junk mail, copies of photographs, used envelopes etc.
Date: Sunday 22nd May 2022
Time: 11:30AM - 1PM (90 minutes)
Venue: OPEN Ealing
Workshop Title: Poetry For Reflection
Workshop Leader: Dr Gita Ralleigh
Booking: Going Live Soon!
In Audre Lorde’s Poetry Is Not A Luxury, she speaks of poetry as the ‘quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives’. In this workshop we’ll use simple visual prompts, from pictures on our phones to the work of artists (provided), to write poetry as reflection, a way for us to elevate the quality of the light we shine upon our own lives. We will progress from simple forms such as the haiku and haibun to using template poems, in order to transform experience into words. This workshop is suitable for all, including those new to poetry.
Preparation: As well as a notebook and pen, attendees are invited to bring a selection of photographs on their phone.
Day: Sunday 22nd May 2022
Time: 11:30AM - 1PM (90 minutes)
Venue: Online
Workshop Title: Nature & Wellbeing - Writing the landscape
Workshop Leader: Dr Roshni Beeharry
Booking: Going Live Soon!
In this online workshop, Roshni will take you on a virtual 'trail' to give you an opportunity to explore some key aspects of our landscapes through writing. Each 'stop' on the trail will represent a key aspect of our landscape and be represented by images and other media. You will be invited to write in response to related prompts at each 'stop', with opportunities to share your writing.
Preparation: Attendees are invited to bring one object from the natural world, e.g. from your garden/park/woods to use as a stimulus for a writing exercise.
Day: Monday 23rd May 2022
Time: 1PM - 3PM (2 hours)
Venue: OPEN Ealing
Workshop Title: How to Start Writing
Workshop Title: Tomek Mossakowski
Booking: Going Live Soon
This is a hands-on, pen-to-paper class, designed to get you writing. We all feel blocked at times - artistically, emotionally or mentally. We can be terrified of the blank page. Some of us dream of writing, but don’t know where or how to start. Using sensory prompts, some rules of writing, warm-up exercises and more, this class will help you free yourself, inside and on paper. The first step can be the hardest, but it’s a lot easier when it’s done together.
Day: Sunday 29th May 2022
Time: 11:30AM - 1PM (90 minutes)
Venue: OPEN Ealing
Workshop Title: Writing What I Love About Ealing
Workshop Leader: Grace Quansah (aka ‘Akuba’)
Booking: Going Live Soon!
“Using various icebreakers, Q & A & other interactive approaches this young people’s/family centred workshop aims to create a safe space for aspiring, new, and seasoned young writers to network, find inspiration, see things from a different perspective, try something different and gain specialist advice. We plan to empower participants undertaking this session to create written and visual narratives for possible future publication.”
Important Information: This workshop is for young people: 8 - 16 years; parents/carers & WAPPY volunteers welcome.
Preparation: Attendees are asked to bring one favourite item to this workshop.
Day: Thursday 19th May 2022
TIME. 11AM - 12:30PM (90 minutes)
VENUE. Online
Workshop Title: Hip Hop HEALS Self-Care Session
Workshop Leader: Kiran Bangerh
Booking: Going Live Soon!
Self-care is about making space for yourself to relax and look after yourself. In this session, we will do just that. Using words and music from Rap to Reggae and Dancehall to Drum and Bass as starting points for expression, we will explore a range of creative self-care techniques to get your own routine going. You do not have to be into Hip Hop at all. Some of the session outcomes include: (1) Brain Dump: a technique to empty your head and refocus on the present; and (2) Unsent letter: helps with reflection and tidying loose ends in life. Whether its through writing or doodling or art, we want you to just do you! Choose your own path, based on what you enjoy. Spelling, grammar, writing, and artistic abilities are all unimportant.
Important Information for you to know: This workshop is open to individuals aged 16+
Day: Tuesday 3rd May 2022
Time: TBC am - 13:00PM (2 hours)
Venue: The Moon & Maybe
Workshop Title: Five Ways To Wellbeing
Workshop Leader: Mary Burns
Booking: Going Live Soon!
This session begins with a mindful nature walk in Lammas Park. Attendees will have some time to soak in some of the Spring Weather followed by a drink / hot beverage at the Moon & Maybe (at attendees' own cost). It is at the Moon & Maybe where Mary will begin her writing workshop; which will explore, through writing, reflection and sharing, the five ways to wellbeing; connect, be active, take notice, keep learning, and give, as developed by the New Economics Foundation. Our time together will give us an opportunity to think about how we can incorporate these suggestions into our daily lives, leading to enhanced wellbeing.
Meet the Writers and Creative Practitioners
Dr Gita Ralleigh
Dr Marc Boaz is an author and psychotherapist with a background in research, policy, and practice change. He is a visiting Professor in Public Mental Health at the University of Northampton, and a member of, and policy advisor to, the UK Trauma Council.
​
Dr Marc Boaz shares one of his favourite quotes with us:
‘Experience is not what happens to a person. It is what a person does with what happens to them. Our experience is divided up into island universes. We jump from one to the other - there are no bridges. Because of their peculiar quality, we say that some of these experiences are more real, or at any rate more significant than others. But the others, nevertheless, continue to exist.’ Aldous Huxley [1933]
Dr Gita Ralleigh is a poet, writer and NHS doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. She has been published by Wasafiri, Bellevue Literary Review, Magma Poetry, Under The Radar and The Rialto among others. She teaches creative writing to science undergraduates at Imperial College and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck and an MSc in Medical Humanities. Her debut poetry collection A Terrible Thing was published by Bad Betty Press in 2020 and her pamphlet Siren is forthcoming in 2022 from Broken Sleep Books. She is a member of the Kinara poetry collective.
​
Dr Gita Ralleigh shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
​
The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives.
--Audre Lorde Poetry Is Not a Luxury
Jon Doe
Grace Quansah (aka ‘Akuba’) has been an educator for 34 years; currently a British Museum facilitator and TalentEd tutor, plus an author, editor, award-winning storyteller, poet, researcher, videographer, equalities officer, political activist and Director of WAPPY (www.wappy.org.uk).
Having founded WAPPY in 2008 to empower young and adult thinkers to use their written, visual and audio narratives to change the world, while also developing themselves, since the pandemic, it has built on local partnerships with libraries and schools. Published in twenty-four collections, Grace is passionate about education and creating community/intergenerational dialogue. She’s an Ealing Labour/Walpole candidate for the council elections May 2022.
Grace Quansah (aka ‘Akuba’) shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
“One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world” – Malala Yousafzai.
Tomek Mossakowski is a writer and professional baker living in Peckham. He was awarded a London Writers Award in 2022 for his YA novel, Ideal Me. His short stories have been published in The Moth, shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Award two years in a row, and performed at Liars' League in London.
​
Tomek Mossakowski shares one of his favourite quotes with us:
​
"There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one." - Ishiguro
​
Nikki is managing editor of streetcake magazine and also runs the streetcake writing prize. Her pamphlet 'I'd better let you go' and collection 'Fanny B. Mine' are out with Beir Bua Press. She is the winner of the Virginia Prize 2020 and her second novel, Volta was published in May 2021.
​
Nikki Dudley shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” - Carl R. Rogers
Dr Emma Filtness
Dr Emma Filtness (she/her) is a queer, disabled poet and lecturer in Creative Writing at Brunel University London. Her visual poem ‘Poison Garden’ was recently published by Osmosis Press, her pamphlet The Venus Atmosphere: Collage Poems is out now with Steel Incisors and her pamphlet Bandaged Dreams is forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books. Emma particularly enjoys exploring found and visual poetics.
Emma Filtness shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
"How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth? That is the question." - Virginia Woolf
I lost my older sister, Promila, in a car accident in 2000. After, I suffered a delayed traumatised grief reaction. I was a keen writer but experienced a creative block that lasted ten years. I trained as a secondary English teacher, and enjoyed a fruitful career in museum and gallery education. When my father died in 2010, I was in recovery from a delayed traumatised grief reaction and a breakdown. This is when I discovered therapeutic writing. My writer’s block came undone. I set up Hip Hop HEALS, a mental health project that tackles mental health inequalities in disadvantaged groups, particularly Minority Ethnic groups, young people and men. We deliver poetry therapy-style workshops in schools, probation centres, mental health units and homeless hostels.
​
Kiran Bangerh shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
​
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." - Albert Einstein
Mary Burns
“Exploring words and offering support has always been at the heart of my work. Helping others discover the benefits of writing, whether for creative or therapeutic purposes brings these two strands together”.
​
Mary Burns is a person-centred counsellor with a special interest in creative writing for wellbeing. Since 2015 she has been using writing as a tool to enhance wellbeing with both individuals and groups. She currently facilitate two weekly Writing for Well Being Groups. They provide a safe, nurturing, and non-judgemental space were participants come together to write, share, reflect and have fun... The groups may have therapeutic benefits but are not therapy groups.
​
She is a London Coordinator for Lapidus International (Writing for Wellbeing Organisation) and a member of the National Association of Writers in Education.
​
Mary Burns shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
​
“Acceptance without judgement is the sweetest sensation in the world”, from I fly out with bright feathers." - Allegra Taylor.
Attachments area
Former editor-in-chief of Candace Magazine, and recipient of multiple awards, Rasheda is an Author, Novelist, Playwright, Journalist, Writing Coach and Radio Presenter, with a back ground in gender base violence and domestic abuse, and a passion for empowering women and girls creatively.
Her two novels, Swimming With Fishes, published in 2017 and had its audio rights bought out by Danish Publisher, Saga Egmont, and Love Again, published in 2020, was short-listed for the Romantic Novelist Association Award 2021, in the Inclusion Category.
Rasheda is the Founder and Director of the Hammersmith & Fulham Writers’ Festival, which host a short story and poetry competition for people aged 5 – adult. Her short story, Justice, was published in an anthology for young adults by Puffin in 2004 and her Play, ‘House of Women,’ was longlisted by the Bush and Angle Theatre Award in 2011 and is presently being developed by Stellar Theatre.
One of my favourite quotes: “Write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Benjamin Franklin
Roshni
“Exploring words and offering support has always been at the heart of my work. Helping others discover the benefits of writing, whether for creative or therapeutic purposes brings these two strands together”.
​
Mary Burns is a person-centred counsellor with a special interest in creative writing for wellbeing. Since 2015 she has been using writing as a tool to enhance wellbeing with both individuals and groups. She currently facilitate two weekly Writing for Well Being Groups. They provide a safe, nurturing, and non-judgemental space were participants come together to write, share, reflect and have fun... The groups may have therapeutic benefits but are not therapy groups.
​
She is a London Coordinator for Lapidus International (Writing for Wellbeing Organisation) and a member of the National Association of Writers in Education.
​
Mary Burns shares one of her favourite quotes with us:
​
“Acceptance without judgement is the sweetest sensation in the world”, from I fly out with bright feathers." - Allegra Taylor.
Attachments area
Dr Poonam Madar is a writer and sociologist with a background in research, visual culture, and the sociology of emotions. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at City, University of London.
Poonam’s research interests and expertise include the use of visual methods to explore themes of identity, culture, difference, and belonging.
She is a therapeutic and reflective writing practitioner. Through her own writing, Poonam explores the essentials of human existence: love, emotion, personal growth, and mortality.
She is Director of Community Engagement at Lapidus International.
?
“Exploring