Creating Words that Work for Health & Wellbeing - one-day workshop with Ted Bowman
and Margo Henderson, Jayne Wilding & Larry Butler

Sunday 5th September 2010 11am to 5pm
Maggie's Glasgow, The Gatehouse, Western Infirmary, 10 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow G11 6PA
'If it's unmentionable, it's unmanageable
Workshop fee: £20 (Lapidus Members £15), concessions by donation
To book your place, send your details including email with a cheque to:
Lapidus Scotland, C/O Lesley O'Brien 10 Smith Terrace, Rutherglen, Glasgow G73 1BB
(cheques payable to Lapidus Scotland)
Further information: 07853188411 (Lesley)

Opening up with your voice and on the page can help express your grief for whatever you've lost: vitality, health, a friend, your home....Sharing stories with like-minded people who are keen to find their power through language and listening, can help even more. Join us for a day of writing, stories, playing with the power of words to heal, celebrating best practice, and evaluating the benefits of our work

Ted Bowman is a grief educator. For over 30 years he has been gathering people's stories of disruptive changes in their lives AND stories revealing resiliency and hope. He draws on literary accounts to prompt and acknowledge ways of coping and healing. Ted is the author of over 80 articles and chapters,two booklets on grief and hope, a volume of personal essays and poems, and is a co-editor of new book of poetry addressing loss and renewal

Margo Henderson, Jayne Wilding, and Larry Butler are writers who facilitate expressive writing groups at Maggie Cancer Care centres

Eco Project - the poetry of biodiversity

MIND - REMIND - REMEMBER
Workshops for all ages

Sunday 28th August 2pm to 5pm in Dalkieth Country Park near Edinburgh
(no previous experience needed)
We will be:

Minding what is here and what may not be here in the near future. What thrives in this place? What needs protecting? How can we encourage new habitats for endangered plants and animals?

Reminding ourselves what we can do to prevent further destruction of our fragile biodiversity. Listening to the voices of the land, the messages of creatures and plants, what artworks can we make about change, loss & new life?

Remembering to celebrate and commemorate all forms of life & extinct species Ð grieving what we have lost and why. Remembering that we are related to all other species then Asking what can we do to increase our biodiversity

Sculptor/letter carver Ian Newton and poet/activist Larry Butler with support from geology professor Stuart Haszeldine, a permaculture teacher and students, gardeners, country park rangers, local citizens and children - we will mark the boundaries of small plots of land, making sculptures, poems, warnings, tributes, epitaphs & blessings

The United Nations declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity Ð the tapestry of infinitely varied organisms and habitats. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme stated: 2010 is a year the world was supposed to have reversed the rate of loss of our biodiversity. This has not happened (from 'Reforesting Scotland' Issue 41 Spring/Summer 2010)

What can artists do? What can scientists do? What can we all do together?

For further information see
Bodhi Eco Project
or email
info@bodhi-eco-project.org.uk

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

Report on Lapidus Scotland Big Gathering

held on Saturday 13th 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
ISBN: 978-1-8470-6252-9 - 260 pages (Continuum International Publishing Group - 2010) This is an inspirational book, one to add to your toolkit if you are involved in any way with creative words for health and wellbeing. Lapidus Scotland helped launch this book during a one-day workshop with the same title. We had readings, seminars, and workshops, culminating with a ceilidh in the evening finishing about 10pm. The programme started with John Killick reading and discussing his new book; Liz Lochead , acclaimed poet, performer, playwright, and GlasgowÕs very own Poet Laureate, read with Tom Leonard who published outside the narrative this year, former creative writing professor at Glasagow University; and there were workshops with Helen Lamb, Writing from Memory; Millie Gray , 'Storytelling with elderly and the benefits of humour'; Jayne Wilding , 'How do we take care of ourselves?' (as facilitators); and Margot Henderson, 'Who Me? Seeing ourselves with new eyes'; as well as celebrating our partnership with the Greater Glasgow Health Board in our project 'Move on Up - Stories of Hope and Recovery from Addiction': www.storiesofrecovery.org.uk
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 themes covered in the book are wide-ranging: from cradle to grave. Part one covers the basics: Childhood & Parents, Relationships, Identity, Abuse, Displacement & Disability, Illness & Mental Illness, Caring & Coping, Loss, Facing Death, Spirituality. These chapter headings may seem a bit dry like a textbook; but I assure you the contents are rich, juicy and varied with inside stories of how personal struggles are transformed into insightful poetry and prose. I hope Writing Your Self will be used as a textbook in training health and social care workers how to use personal material both creatively and therapeutically.
Part two is filled with practical how-to-do-it ideas and exercises from Getting Started to Finishing Work. After the reading Killick ran a workshop on Dreams emphasising that dreams often present us with powerful images which stand out from the dreams in which they appear. He suggests that we choose an image from a recent dream, and flow-write or cluster from it (page 212).
In the conclusion Killick & Schneider state that by the very act of writing, we are projecting the self outwards onto the page....an act of creation that brings order and focus to the personal material. Myra Schneider wrote that Drawing on my experience to create finished poems has been affirming and a way of creating something positive from relationships which were often painful.

Events and Workshops

The day was packed with practical ideas and more than 40 people in the Maggie Cancer Care Centre by Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow - including a few Lapidus folk from England. Comments included: 'stimulating, wide-ranging, intimacy and openness, handouts were really helpful, informal and relaxed, a wealth of experience, real people telling their own stories, great opportunity to share ideas with like-minded people, enriching, loved sharing and hearing other folk'
After lunch we had a lively conversation with Liz Lochhead and Tom Leonard. It turned into a debate about therapeutic writing and writing as an artform, exploring the differences and overlaps.
Jayne Wilding's workshop: how do we take care of ourselves? asked the questions: How do we, as facilitators take care of ourselves? What resources do we use? How does writing help? This workshop was designed for people interested or involved in facilitating writing groups. One participant commented: great to meet other Lapidus members and people involved with Maggies, other writers, exchange ideas; I feel closer to being able to facilitate workshops myself.
The afternoon ended with a panel discussion involving facilitators from five Maggie Centres in Scotland: Dundee, Kirkaldie, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness. Maggie Centres and Lapidus have a special relationship with regard to expressive writing. Whenever they open a new centre, they approach Lapidus to find a facilitator for their writing groups. Members of the writing group in Glasgow Maggie Centre spoke warmly about their participation and the therapeutic benefits of creative writing, and some read poems they had written in the group

After all the workshops were over, we held the Lapidus Scotland AGM and attracted four new people to join Lapidus and the Lapidus Scotland committee. Our programme for the forthcoming year will include developing on-line skill sharing and peer mentoring.

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

Previous Events

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

For the compilation document 'Hidden Voices', a fund of stimulating ideas and practical workshops, click on the link below. To read this document you should have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. Please note this document may take a few minutes to load as it is 112 pages