What's Your Story? Writing Courses

Our three latest What's Your Story? courses have been a fantastic success!

Over the past couple of months, Writing on the Wall has collaborated with Refugee Action, The Stroke Association and The Liverpool Mental Health Consortium to provide free writing courses to connect individuals and communities, develop opportunities for self-expression, using group-work and circle time to ensure accessibility and collective encouragement for members of communities who often feel excluded from traditional writing activities.

The Refugee Action group were tutored by award winning author, Helen Walsh.
This is what she had to say about the course and her experience:

"I can think of few instances in my life to date where a group of people have inspired, challenged and subverted my way of looking at the world in such a way as my students did in those sessions. Each week I was presented with new ways of looking at the human experience, each week I was forced to pare back those uncomfortable truths of humanity, and in doing so re-evaluate my understanding of the concept of liberty, and question how often and how casually it is squandered here in the Western world.

All of my writers were brimming with stories, so rich and complex and ultimately life affirming, that they needed little inspiration from me. I hope that they will continue to lay down their pasts and make sense of the here and now and that one day, we are able to read their stories in print. I’m in no doubt that the face of contemporary fiction will be richer, deeper, better for it."

We are currently preparing a publication of their work on the website and will be holding a celebration event for the writers soon.

Performance artist, Curtis Watt worked with Stroke Survivors in association with The Stroke Association. The group ran for six weeks and ended with a performance at the Liverpool Central Library. This What’s Your Story? creative writing course enabled stroke survivors to tell their story about the impact of stroke and life after stroke. The celebration event was held at The Central Library, the night was full of inspirational stories and poetry from the group.

Kate Charles
Stroke Association Coordinator:

"The project was a huge success and we hope to work more with WoW in the future. The participants of the ‘What’s your story’ project have gained in confidence and developed some hidden talents and skills. Being able to share their stories has really helped them emotionally in their recovery from stroke. Curtis was fantastic with the group and really did get the very best out of them in such a short space of time. 

The celebration event was a huge success and enabled stroke survivors to have a voice and also raise awareness about the impact of stroke, particularly highlighting young/working age stroke as many of the participants were of this age group.They all showed courage and inspiration beyond any of our expectations and we are proud of their achievements. All of the amazing work they produced has shown that there is life after stroke and they all achieved something that they maybe never thought would be possible."

Performer and writer, Clare Shaw worked with our group in collaboration with The Liverpool Mental Health Consortium.

The What's Your Story? writers performed at Liverpool Central Library and were presented with a published book of their work. The evening was truly moving, with heartfelt stories from the group.

WoW would like to thank everyone who made this such a special couple of months. It really has been fantastic hearing and reading everyone's spectacular work. We are proud to be enabling people to express themselves through their words in our What's Your Story? courses.