For current information about planned events from Lapidus Scotland contact Larry Butler by emailing Lapidus Scotland

Courses

Peer Mentoring Workshops

See Lapidus Scotland Autumn Events (PDF doc) for full details and booking form

Dates: September - November 2011
Location: Maggie's Glasgow, The Gatehouse, Western Infirmary, 10 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow G11 6PA EXCEPT Stories for Health which is at the St Mungo Museum of Religion
Cost: £15 Lapidus Members (£20 non-members) - suggested donation

Fri 30 Sept 7pm: Ceilidh & Party for Lapidus Scotland and friends
Sat 1st Oct 10am-5.30pm: Sharing Our Stories with Ruth Kirkpatrick - a day of peer mentoring
Sun 2nd Oct 10am-5pm: Stories for Health with Ted Bowman keynote speaker,
see Scottish Storytelling Centre for details
Sun 30 Oct 10am-5pm: Killing the Critic with Alison Reid
Sun 27 Nov 10am-5pm: Touching the Earth with Margot Henderson

Re:Mind
A weekend of events presented by Lapidus Scotland and the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival exploring themes of memory, identity and dreams. Re:Mind is a melting pot of creative organisations and artists including Lapidus Scotland exploring ideas through film, theatre and words

See Re:Mind Events (PDF doc) for full details and booking form

Dates: 14-15 October 2011
Location: CCA, Glasgow
Cost: free
see Mental Health Arts and Film Festival for details
includes writing and storytelling workshops, poet Jackie Kay in conversation with Margot Henderson and a panel discussion on themes of Memory, Medicine and Creative Words for Mental Health and Wellbeing chaired by Sir Kenneth Calman with experts from the field

Autumn Writing Day with Sue Mayfield
Saturday 29th October 2011
Location: Dumfriesshire/Lanarkshire borders
£50 (£45 if you book before 10th October)
Sue Mayfield has been a writer for over 20 years, writing fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. She is an experienced workshop leader and has been Writer-in-Residence in a number of health and community settings including GP surgeries, hospitals, museums and schools. Sue currently facilitates Creative Writing at Maggie's Centre in Cheltenham, where she lives
For full details click
Autumn Writing Day

For details of venue see Ferndale Studio

Research Project in Glasgow: Writing Geographies for Wellbeing and Recovery:

The impact of the Creative Writing of Place and Landscape for People with Mental Health Problems

This is to be a participatory, action-research project to evaluate the experiential impacts of creative writing for recovery, well-being and the quality of life of people with enduring mental health problems
It will involve 10-12 people with mental health problems from a variety of backgrounds (connected to Lapidus activities) who will form a creative writing group, participate in a residential writing course and produce a book/performance event
The research project will take place over a year and be staffed by Lapidus facilitators and researched by Glasgow university researchers
The group will write about the geographies of their daily lives, routines and imaginations. Participants will write in and of different places (urban parks, woodland, city venues, medical spaces), and about aspects of inclusion, healing and recovery through these different environments
An aim will be to support continued group writing after the project
For further information about the project email Dr Hester Parr or Larry Butler

Previous meetings

The Power of Poem & Story

Expressive Writing for Growth & Healing
with Geri Chavis and Liz Lochhead
Date: 25 June 2011, 10am - 6pm
Location: Glasgow
Poetry Therapy expert Geri Chavis will be supported by Lapidus Scotland facilitators
See Power of Poem & Story (PDF doc) for full details

We will be launching Geri's new book: 'Poetry and Story Therapy: The Healing Power of Creative Expression'. And there will be a reading with Liz Lochhead, the national poet for Scotland

A Lapidus Scotland event
with Michael Williams, Jayne Wilding & Allison Galbraith

Lapidus Scotland Brigid's Fire, January 2011

Big Gathering, February 2010

at Maggie's Glasgow, The Gatehouse, Western Infirmary, 10 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow G11 6PA

Book Launch - Writing Your Self
Transforming Personal Material by John Killick & Myra Schneider
John Killick read from Writing Your Self. which includes 21 other contributors, two of whom were present. Duncan Tolmie read a moving passage called Writing Myself Sane: 'I could reduce the pressure in my head by transferring my thoughts onto paper....'This was the saga of his mother with Alzheimers and the effect this had on his family and marriage. 300,000 words later, he made it through the darkest year of his life. Then Linda Chase read from her piece 'Surrender': how she transformed the personal experience of being lovers with a younger man into a sequence of poems filled with insight and humour. All the contributors to the book share their personal stories that inspired their writing.
'Writing Your Self is a vauluable guide to making our own stories as adventurous and as generous as we have it in us to be....To tell any story is a spiritual act: to tell our own stories is both liberation and challenge....'(John Burnside)

The Trick is to Keep Writing, Glasgow, October 2009

Lapidus Scotland collaborated with the University of Glasgow, VoX, the Scottish Book Trust and the Mental Health Foundation to present a unique programme of literary events at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow as part of the 2009 Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. The inimitable Liz Lochhead helped launch the Festival at the Film House in Edinburgh on the 1st September, with a humorous performance of her poetry, and a witty and timely reminder that most, if not all of us, will suffer some form of mental distress in our lives.

There were workshops, talks, readings, book launches and performances, and showcase opportunities for emerging writers to showcase their work. The theme of the programme is Writing : Experience and featured writers Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, Tom Leonard, Denise Mina, Alan Bissett, Zoe Strachan and Louise Welsh

Big Tent Environmental Festival, July 2009

Lapidus Scotland hosted the Poetry Tent at the Big Tent Festival - Scotland's largest eco-festival - for the second year running. Our venue is the idyllic cherry orchard of Falkland Palace, Fife. The tree were in full fruit!

Further info: bigtentfestival.co.uk

Lapidus's theme was Freedom and Belonging and how writing can empower people to explore, express and resolve the dilemmas caused by these competing needs.

Participants were invited to write a renga, bring along favourite readingsto cross-fertilise ideas and inspire free-writing, enjoy a creative potting table with novelist and short story writer Frances Campbell planting seeds in paper pots, then making bouquets of words.

Bernard MacLaverty award winning novelist, short-story writer and film director, read from his work and amswered questions

Open-mic MC-ed by Lesley O'Brien, storyteller and singer

Theatre Nemo , a community theatre company based in Glasgow which runs performance-arts activities in psychiatric hospitals, prisons and the community

The Garden Cottage Diaries. Fiona Houston talked about her year living as if in the 18th Century.

Poet Bashabi Fraser and poet and novelist, Ron Butlin, introduces Scottish PEN’s first online recording project: ‘Departures and Arrivals’. The commissioned work highlights the theme of ‘Homecoming’. PEN is a worldwide association of writers pledged to protect freedom of expression.

Collaborative poetry with Larry Butler, poet, taiji teacher, gardener and director of the Bodhi eco-Project

Freedom and Belonging: Roots and Wings, Glasgow, February 2009
Liz Lochead, acclaimed poet, performer, playwright, and Glasgow ’s very own Poet Laureate, and

Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, writer, and founder member of Mojo (the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation)

Frances Campbell, novelist, journalist and Lapidus Scotland Committee Member. In White Stones, Frances engaged participants in a creative exploration of ‘the white stones’ we can set to create and defend our boundaries in our lives and creative practices

Martin Stepek, poet, politician (ex-leader of the Scottish Green Party), promoter of Polish culture in Scotland , businessman, and teacher. In Absorbing Legacy Martin will engage participants in examining how to source family and related stories/cultures through writing

Margot Henderson, poet, story-teller, community artist and member of the Findhorn community led participants in exploring some of the puzzles and paradoxes of freedom and belonging, our individuality and our inter-connectedness

Lapidus Scotland Inaugural Conference Hidden Voices, Glasgow, September 2006
Three days of panel presentations, discussions, workshops, readings, and performances celebrating 10 years of Lapidus and the diverse voices of Scotland

Writing and Creative Groups

Celebrating Stories of Recovery www.storiesofrecovery.co.uk

Greater Glasgow and Clyde Drug Action Team teamed up with Lapidus writing and storytelling service to work with recovering drug users to write short stories about their recovery process. Twenty stories have been penned and the first ten stories were released in September 2009

Life Writing

With experienced tutor Liam Stewart. Explore, draft and write about an aspect of your life story. The emphasis is on providing a receptive audience and mutual encouragement for your writing. As the class progresses Liam will encourage you to consider ways of developing your writing further

Mondays 3-5 pm starting 11th January 2010. Venue St James' Parish Church, Pollok, Glasgow

Photography and Storytelling Project

Would you like to learn more about photography, IT and storytelling in a friendly environment? Judy Parrott will be running a project, exploring Pollok and surrounding areas through photographs and words

Friday afternoons 1-3pm on 22nd, 29th January, 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th February
at Village Storytelling Centre, St James (Pollok) Parish Church, 183 Meiklerig Crescent, Glasgow, G53 5NA Tel: 0141 882 3025

www.thevillagestorytellingcentre.com

Resources

Web of Words
The Web of Words is a collaborative writing and performance exercise devised by founder Lapidus member Graham Hartill as a way of celebrating every person's right to speak, and be listened to, regardless of their confidence or experience as a writer. Individual responses to a given theme are encouraged through a series of writing, reading, and listening exercises: everyone produces their own 'verse'. The verses are then threaded together using a chorus and variations devised by the teacher/facilitator to echo the participantsÕ own words and ideas. Graham's technique can be fitted to any timeframe, and is suitable for groups of up to about 20 people. Click on this link to download for your copy of Web of Words (pdf doc).

Reports of Lapidus Scotland Activities

• Minutes of the Lapidus Scotland AGM 2006 (word doc)

  Events 2004-2006 - Click here for your copy Lapidus Scotland events (pdf doc).

• Report of Writing-Well Seminars 2003/04 (word doc)
• Report of the Writing Well Seminars, Winter 2002-3 (as Word | as PDF)
• Handout from Dr James Hawkins "Writing on Prescription" seminar 15/12/02 (as Word | as PDF)
  See also Dr Hawkins' web site at http://www.goodmedicine.org.uk/