Lapidus News

How did you come to writing for wellbeing?

I have been writing and journaling all my life. Early on, I realised the power in putting things into words, and writing helped me to heal when my mother committed suicide. When I left my second staff journalism job to go freelance in 2001, I used journaling, along with studying lyric writing and acting, to unblock myself creatively. Later, I trained in life coaching and teaching and set up a successful English tutoring practice. Through this, I discovered that I had a talent for helping people to overcome the fears, blocks and shame that can stop them from fully-expressing themselves in writing.

Carolyn Shanti is the author of ‘Trap, Prey, Lust’. The novel is based on the true story of her own childhood, where she was brought up in a wealthy and privileged family in England. A secluded and idyllic mansion, surrounded by acres of private property was where she spent her childhood years. It was also a place of dark shadows and sexual secrets. Her father, a prominent businessman in the fashion industry was a member of a well-known occult society. As a young child, Carolyn suffered ritual sexual abuse and was raped, not only by her own father but members of the society. She was ‘groomed’ and the use of mind control techniques were put in place to work against her remembering the abuse or the perpetrators of these acts of violence.

Kate Heaslip runs Book Incubator, an organisation that runs literacy workshops for primary schoold children in Australia. The focus is on improving literacy, telling a story, and boosting creativity. Francesca Baker, Lapidus’ Outreach Manager, asked her a few questions…

A new report entitled A Society of Readers, commissioned by the charity The Reading Agency and conducted by think tank Demos, finds a significant body of evidence to show that reading can help to combat the growing issue of loneliness, as well as acting as a tool to protect future generations from loneliness. With nine million people in the UK currently feeling lonely "often" or "always", the research shines a light on the benefits of using reading as a form of social connection. To find out more about the report and what it means, we caught up with Edward Cutler, Digital Communications Officer at The Reading Agency.

“Write here, sanctuary” creative writing for refugees and people seeking asylum - Arts & Health

Theodore Stickley, Ada Hui, Michelle Stubley, Francesca Baker and Michael Craig Watson

“Write here, sanctuary” creative writing for refugees and people seeking asylum is a study published in Arts & Health by Theodore Stickley, Ada Hui, Michelle Stubley, Francesca Baker and Michael Craig Watson that looks at the efficacy and affect of creative writing workshops for refugees run by Write East Midlands in three cities – Nottingham, Derby and Leicester.

Every month or so, we are sending our outreach officer, Francesca Baker, out to bring back an interesting story from the field of words for wellbeing. Here is the first of these stories!

In October 2017 Jane Moss embarked on a three year research project to create a community novel. Her question is ‘what would happen if a community wrote a novel using a combination of pens, apps and laptops?’ Or, to put it another, more academic way, ‘What is the potential role for digital media in co-authorship of a community novel?’

We thought this sounded interesting – and fun – so caught up with Jane to find out more.