Moving Mountains - Writing's power to connect through chronic illness and disability

To celebrate the recent publication of their books and anthologies, we are delighted that Louise Kenward and Polly Atkin will be joining us for this session to discuss the value of connection with nature when living with chronic illness/disability and the role writing can play. (This event is free for our members, with non-members paying £2 in lieu of a donation.)

This session with Louise Kenward and Polly Atkin will explore:

1. The value and connection with nature and living with chronic illness/disability.

2. The role and value of writing and the value of telling our stories in whatever way we can.

3. The problems of the medical model and lack of treatment for poorly understood conditions which links with delays and problems in diagnosis. 

4. The value of writing to redress some of the balance in authority and knowledge. The role of connection with nature offering and alternative framing and dialogues outside of the medical model that we can identify with in a more meaningful way.

5. How writing can enable us to to communicate our experiences and make sure our voices are heard.

Louise Kenward is a writer, artist and psychologist. Editor of Moving Mountains: writing nature through illness and disability (published Oct, 2023). Her writing has also featured in Women on Nature, The Polyphony, The Clearing and Radio 3 (Landscapes of Recovery). In 2020, she set up ZebraPsych with the aim of raising awareness of energy limiting chronic illness, and she co-produced the anthology Disturbing the Body (Boudicca). Louise was Writer in Residence with Sussex Wildlife Trust (2021-2022) and is a postgraduate researcher at the Centre for Place Writing, Manchester Metropolitan University, where she is researching themes of post-viral illness in a coastal at risk landscape (Romney Marshes).

Polly Atkin (FRSL) is a poet and nonfiction writer. She has published three poetry pamphlets and two collections – Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) and Much With Body (Seren: 2021). Her nonfiction includes Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021), a Barbellion-longlisted biography of Dorothy’s later life and illness, and a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability, Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre: 2023). She has an essay on rain and chronic illness in the groundbreaking anthology Moving Mountains: Writing Nature through Illness and Disability (Footnote: 2023). She works as a freelancer from her home in the English Lake District.

(This is run via zoom and can be viewed in your browser without downloading an app). 

*Please note that sessions may be canceled very occasionally due to pacing requirements. (We will let you know if this is the case.)