Listening to the Unheard

               

A driving force behind my writing passion is political activism ….writing may galvanize readers to be more politically aware [with] or without that being the writer’s sole intent (bell hooks, 1999: 16).

 

In recent months I have been re-reading Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness (published by Duke University Press in 2010) and two books by bell hooks; Remembered Rapture: the writer at work (Holt Books,1999) and All About Love: new visions  (Harper Collins, 2001). 

Reading these texts together leaves me with a dilemma. That is, how can I agree with Ahmed’s (2010) call to disrupt, to challenge, to ‘kill joy’, whilst at the same time strongly supporting bell hooks’ argument that we need to bring a ‘love ethic’ to every dimension of our lives? 

A little more detail before I attempt to address my struggles. For Sara Ahmed: 

There is a desire to believe that women become feminists because they are unhappy…. feminists are read as being unhappy, such that situations of conflict, violence and power can are read as about the unhappiness of feminists, rather than being what feminists are unhappy about (Ahmed, 2010: 66-67 original emphasis).

And:

My desire is to revitalize the feminist critique of happiness as a human right and an appropriate language for politics…. There is solidarity in recognizing our alienation from happiness, even if we do not inhabit the same place (as we do not). There can even be a joy in killing joy. And kill joy, we must and we do (Ahmed, 2010: 87).

Whereas for bell hooks: 

To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change…. We do this by choosing to work with individuals we admire and respect; by committing to give our all to relationships, by embracing a global vision wherein we see our lives and our fate as intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet…. (bell hooks, 2001: 87-88).

For Sara Ahmed disruption, challenge, unhappiness and rage are politically meaningful. She shows how dominant culture pathologises the righteous anger of feminists (and others) denying structural injustice, reframing it as a personal, emotional problem (see Charles Wright Mills’ (1959) discussion of the relationship between personal troubles and public issues here also). Those who speak uncomfortable truths are framed as causing conflict rather than revealing it and un/happiness is used to discipline those who challenge social norms (Ahmed, 2010). I make connections here with my own work with those whose experiences and identities are unheard. Despite widespread commitment to 'giving people a voice', many experiences and identities remain inaudible within dominant, powerful and noisy social, cultural and political narratives. My awareness of this, originating in my work on non/motherhood, has extended into other auto/biographical projects, including studies of death and loss, solitary ageing, bodily ambivalence and the labour of ethical (self)care (e.g. Letherby, 2022, 2024, forthcoming; Clarkson and Letherby, 2026, forthcoming). So childless women and men are mis-labelled as ‘bitter’, solitary older adults misunderstood as ‘anti-social’ and ‘sad’, and the messiness of many people’s relationship to their bodily, emotional and spiritual selves, is dismissed if they deviate in any way from what is socially expected and valued. With all of these experiences, and more, in mind Ahmed helps me to think about how unheardness is produced, through social and institutional othering. 

Although on first reading bell hooks (1999, 2001) may appear to be arguing something very different her ideas are in fact complementary to Ahmed’s. As my chosen quote to begin this piece highlights bell hooks’ work is rooted in political activism and her concern is to find alternative ways to work, to challenge, to be. Furthermore, her commitment to a ‘love ethic’ is not a sentimental or romantic one, rather it insists on honesty, openness, relational accountability and positive transformation. Again, my thinking is aided, for in order to really hear the unheard we need to listen differently. This includes being aware that the research process is always emotional, embodied and political that that a commitment to integrity, care, and openness is the only way to practice if we want our work, including our research findings, to make any kind of difference. This attention to complexity, to practicing and listening differently and to usefulness, is what I have attempted across my academic research and writing life (e.g. Letherby, 2002, 2003, 2015, 2020, 2026).

In sum when hearing misunderstood and marginalised experiences and when listening to those who feel in some, or all, ways dismissed and silenced, we must embrace both the courage to disturb (Ahmed) and the commitment to care (bell hooks). To put this another way; to hear the unheard, we must be willing to disturb the atmospheres that keep them silent and to cultivate the relational ethics that make new forms of recognition possible. Disruption and love are not opposites; together they form a care-full methodology for recognising and valuing unheard lives. 

***

What does such a commitment to disruption and care mean in practice? For me it is realised, and enacted, through theorised subjectivity, slow listening and critical, creative auto/biographical storytelling.

In making a case for theorised subjectivity, rather than foregrounding objectivity, I begin with the subjective. I do not reject objectivity as an epistemological value but I do argue that we need to recognise subjectivity as an inevitable part of our work for if we do not, we are likely to miss (more of) the things that impact on our ability to speak as knowledge producers. Thus, I insist on the interrogation of the positionality of all those involved. Ironically, this super-sensitivity to the relevance of the positionality (personhood) of the researcher and/or author (and of respondents and others) can feasibly lead to the conclusion that our work is more objective, in that if not value-free, it is value-explicit. Theorised subjectivity begins then with the recognition that we never listen from nowhere. Our histories, identities, encounters and emotions shape how we hear others. Instead of pretending to be neutral theorised subjectivity uses this awareness as a source of ethical responsibility (e.g. Letherby, 2003; Letherby et al., 2012; Letherby, 2026).

Slow listening depends on this. You cannot listen slowly, with care, openness and attention, unless you first acknowledge the position you are listening from. This is why theorised subjectivity is the ethical foundation of slow listening which in turn is the way in which we put theorised subjectivity into practice. Slow listening means listening for absence as well as presence in the stories we are told; what is hard to say (and to hear). Slow listening values emotion as data rather than distraction or something to be avoided. Slow listeningnecessitates sitting with discomfort, challenging one’s own assumptions and values whilst also recognising the way in which we are externally perceived influences what others might share with us. Slow listening then is the methodological practice through which disruption and care, rage and love, are brought together.

Care-full research necessitates consideration of its impact on those who research, as well as those who are researched. Others, including many feminists, have written about the politics of care, relationality and social justice within the academy. Rogowska-Stangret (2021: 13) for example argues for care as a methodology where:

…care thus conceptualized is a way to reimagine research methodologies and practices for higher education pedagogies so that they could inspire, help and provide academic communities to face the challenges of “our today”.

Similar arguments and hopeful alternatives to care-lessness are suggested by Chrissie Rogers (2022), Adrian Kelly (2015), and Emile Dionne (2021); all of whom Tracey and Collett and I (Collett and Letherby, 2024) draw on in an article arguing for the possibility of positive collaboration and collective creativity to enrich our working and our personal lives. Emilie Dionne (2021: 92) writes of the slow scholarship movement which aims to create and enact sustainable, positive, creative and liveable scholarship as well as create space for it where one can come, join, live, thrive and strive with attention to uniqueness and differences. As such slow scholarship aims to: 

 

….rekindle “people-level” ways of knowing, being and becoming in “sustainable” ways; it also articulates itself as a micro-practice/politics, operating as sublevels ...hardly perceptible at times but transgressive and subversive....

 

And yet a focus on an ethics of care and relatedly slow scholarship may be co-opted by the academy, as slow scholarship does not necessarily mean less scholarship, and self/collaborative care may release the institution from its own duty of care (Collett and Letherby, 2024). Despite this, Tracey and I, drawing on our own auto/biographical practice, found ourselves agreeing with Lynne Segal (2017) who in her book, Radical Happiness: moments of collective joy, argues:

 

…the potential for the unleashing of collective action in almost any form, and along with that the moments of shared joy, collective energies easily foster, are always reappearing on the social horizon. This is why breaking down distances between people remains possible, at least some of the time, when we are working together for happier futures.

A position which for me resonates with my contention that slow listening can, and should be, embedded within research, and indeed within everyday life more generally. 

In arguing for theorised subjectivity and with a commitment to slow listening my approach embraces, and represents, critical, creative auto/biographical storytelling. I work with taboo topics, with the tension between choice and control, with feelings of uncertainty and ambivalence, and with embodied knowledge (my own and others) to make space for experiences that dominant narratives often overlook. I challenge traditional conceptions of knowledge production that suggest that the research process should, and can, be hygienic, neat, tidy and value free. I accept and embrace research as a messy, embodied, emotional, power-laden, political experience. I argue that all research is subjective auto/biographical practice and that attending to our research processes is essential because every product we produce is shaped by the conditions of its making. Attention to embodiment, to power, to emotion and to politics helps uncover the places where structural inequalities are felt most acutely. Grief, shame, rage, guilt, longing, and love, care and happiness can reveal the circumstances that result in othering and unheardness.  

For me research is a way of redistributing voice, challenging the conditions that produce unheardness, and making visible the structural arrangements that leave some lives misrepresented, unrecognised, silenced. Furthermore, and to end near to where I began, listening to the unheard requires the disruption and unhappiness that Sara Ahmed (2010) calls for, as this is essential to expose silencing. Listening to the unheard also requires the care, the love, that bell hooks (2001) champions, in order to build the conditions where unheard voices can be recognised, welcomed and valued. 

Disrupting and challenging harmful and inaccurate stereotypes and behaviours, and working for better understandings and practices, is a form of care, of love. Unheardness is produced through social silencing; hearing the unheard requires both disruption and care, rage and love. Slow listening, grounded in theorised subjectivity and critical creative auto/biographical storytelling, is, I contend, the means through which these commitments are enacted.

***

 

With thanks to Tracey Collett and Andrew Clarkson; two people who practice care-fully every day. 

 

References 

Ahmed, S. (2010) The Promise of Happiness Durham and London: Duke University Press

bell hooks (1999) Remembered Rapture: the writer at work  New York: Holt Books.

bell hooks (2001) All About Love: New Visions New York: Harper Collins.

Clarkson, A. and Letherby, G. (2026) Where Is the Happy in an Open-Ended Story? ttps://ethical-exercise-lab.com/where-is-the-happy-in-an-open-ended-story

 

Clarkson, A. and Letherby, G. (forthcoming) The Politics of Personal Training: a critical exploration of fitness coaching London: Routledge

 

Collett, T. and Letherby, G. (2024) ‘‘If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to be Part of Your Revolution(s)’: On being together in and outside of the academy’ Auto/Biography Review 5(1): 31–52

 

Dionne, E. (2021) ‘Slowing Down with Non-Human Matter: The contribution of feminist new materialism to slow scholarship’ in Bozalek V, Zembylas, M. Tronto, J.C. (eds.) Posthuman and  Political  Care  Ethics  for Reconfiguring  Higher  Education  Pedagogies London: Routledge, 91-106.

Kelly, A. (2015) ‘Intimacy and emotional labour in academic development’ International Journal for Academic Development 20(1): 93-104.

 

Letherby, G. (2002) 'Claims and Disclaimers: knowledge, reflexivity and representation in feminist research' Sociological Research Online 6(4): 81-93.

 

Letherby, G. (2003) Feminist Research in Theory and Practice Buckingham: Open University.

 

Letherby G (2015) ‘Gendered-Sensitive Method/ologies’ in Robinson C and Richardson D (eds) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies 4^th edition London: Palgrave (5^th Edition 2020, revised, 6^th Edition, 2026, revised).

 

Letherby, G. (2022) ‘Thirty Years and Counting: an-other auto/biographical story’ Auto/Biography Review 3(1): 13-31.

 

Letherby, G. (2024) ‘Deploying sociological fiction and memoir to explore issues of loss, kindness, and emotional wellbeing’ in Moran, L. and Dooley, Z. (eds.) Biographical Perspectives on Lives Lived During Covid-19: Global Narratives and International Methodological Innovations London: Springer, 343-363.

 

Letherby, G. (forthcoming) ‘Reflections on non/mothering, loss, love and legacy’ in Kovacic, T. Prieto-Blanco, P. and Moran, L. (eds.) Voice in Biographical Narrative Research: Fragmentation, Legitimation, and Reflexivity London: Routledge,.

 

Letherby, G. Scott, J. and Williams, M. (2012) Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research London: Sage.

 

Mills, C.W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

 

Rogers, C. (2017) ‘I’m Complicit and I’m Ambivalent and that’s Crazy’: Care-less Spaces for Women in the Academy’ Women’s Studies International Forum 61:115-122.

 

Rogowska-Stangret, M. (2021) ‘Care as a Methodology: Reading Natalie Jeremijenko and Vinciane Despret diffractively’ in Bozalek V, Zembylas M, Tronto J.C. (eds.) Posthuman and Political Care Ethics for Reconfiguring Higher Education Pedagogies London: Routledge, 13-26.

 

Segal, L. (2017) Radical Happiness: moments of collective joy London: Verso.

 

Writing for the Unheard

I am a Sociologist of the Unheard, advocating for people whose experiences are misunderstood, misrepresented, overlooked or silenced. I ask: what happens when people’s stories do not fit the usual scripts and expectations? Focusing on the unheard reveals what occurs when people are not recognised or listened to. It brings together my longstanding work on absence, loss and different ways of being; my current work on the micro‑politics of everyday encounters; and my commitment to ethical attention, relational understanding and emotionally honest scholarship. Working auto/biographically I connect personal experience with sociological concerns of wellbeing, value and relational ethics to trace how otherhood accumulates across a life, and highlight too complexity of experience, through revealing both the harm and the transformative potential therein. 

In 1959 the American sociologist Charles Wright Mills’ (1959: 204) argued that: ‘The social scientist is not some autonomous being standing outside society, the question is where he (sic) stands within it. . .’ I agree with this and that we should: 

. . . learn to use [our] life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine it and interpret it. In this sense craftsmanship (sic) is the centre of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you work (Mills, 1959: 216).

I believe that an explicit auto/biographical approach not only illuminates the social location of the writer, thus making clear the author’s role in constructing rather than discovering the knowledge produced (Stanley, 1993; Letherby, 2020, 2022), but also encourages reflection on power relationships within research and scholarship (Letherby, 2020). Furthermore, auto/biographical sociological study, either focusing on one, several or many lives, highlights the need to liberate the individual from individualism; to demonstrate how individuals are social selves always in relation to others (highlighted by the / in auto/biography) (Ribbens 1993; Morgan,1998; Letherby, 2018, 2022).

 

Laurel Richardson (2001: 34) calls for academics to ‘get personal’ by ‘writing-stories that situate . . . [our] work in sociopolitical, familial, and academic climates’. For Richardson ‘[w]riting is a method of discovery, a way of finding out about yourself and your world’ (ibid). I take this further and increasingly believe that writing is, for me at least, part of a ‘politics of belonging’ (Yuval-Davis 2006, Monbiot 2017) – who I am, what I value, where I stand, how I want to be viewed by others.

 

A few years ago in a paper focusing specifically on personal experiences of bereavement and loss (Letherby, 2015) I wrote about (amongst other things): how a personal loss resulted in me finding Sociology and in turn how Sociology has affected the way I understand and experience loss. My concern was with how my own experiences motivated and influenced my personal research journey AND in turn how said research has impacted on my life. Auto/Biographical work, I argue, including creative auto/biographical storytelling enables meaningful reflection of one story, many stories, unique stories and collective stories. Such work highlights differences and encourages us to make connections. It challenges traditional practices and dominant discourses, it affirms and celebrates the real-world life experience of individuals and groups. It is a powerful tool for telling academic stories in different ways and is valuable because along with other creative practices it; ‘harnesses our emotions and captures the imagination, and so helps us to see the world through a different lens, or to reimagine it in a different way (Blackie, 2022: 148).

 

In a 2025 conference paper entitled ‘Living to Write or Writing to Live?’ (Letherby, 2025) I spoke about my own motivation for, commitment to, and experience of, writing. I spoke of how much of my writing is strongly connected to personal issues of loss, love and legacy and, with reference to the broader political concerns, my aim is to raise attention to experiences and identities that are often misunderstood, misrepresented, silenced. In reflecting further on my writing experiences I drew on the Japanese concept of ikigai. On first (and second….) reading ikigai seemed appropriate to my philosophy of life and work. Ikigai is often depicted, as the intersection of four elements; that is:

             What you love

What you are good at

What you can be paid for

What the world needs

 

Imagine my distress when I discovered that this version of the concept is actually cultural appropriation. In the West ikigai is most commonly understood as a model of, and for, ‘purpose’. Popularised in blogs and through TED talks it is linked to career success, monetisation, and productivity. It is even possible to train to be an Ikigai coach so that one can help others achieve success. The book Ikigai ni Tsuite (1966) – translated as that which makes life worth living - written by Meiko Kamiya, oft called the ‘mother of ikigai’, remains largely untranslated. For Kamiya ikigai is modest, shifting and situational and can be found in relationships, hobbies, rituals, and in small and transient pleasures. Here ikigai refers to the small joys and reasons for living found in daily life; enjoying morning sunlight, sharing meals, drinking tea, feeling connected to others. In its original conception ikigai is a state of mind or a way of being rather than a grand mission; appreciating one’s own existence, rather than chasing a singular life purpose for external, measurable, validation. 

My initial disappointment that the concept was not what I though, was quickly followed by feelings of foolishness and guilt that I’d been seduced by a seemingly attractive and affirming self-goal, which is in fact a neoliberal reframing of a kinder, more powerfully centring, philosophy of life. Yet, there is a tension. In my writing I attempt to raise the voices of those who are less represented, less heard. I believe that the work, which includes but is not limited to the writing, I do, is of value. The feedback I receive suggests that others think so too. It is certainly of worth to me in helping me to think through feelings and theories, to work out what I know and do not know, where I stand, what I believe I and others can do to, in at least some small ways, make the world a better place. There is great fulfilment and pleasure in all of this. And yet I know that not everyone has the resources to express themselves the way I have, and continue to do. Nor does everyone feel the need to share their story as I have and do. My choices are not better than anyone else’s. What they are though is situational and contextual, shaped by circumstance and environment, and rooted, as I expressed earlier, in personal loss, love and legacy. 

I accept the contradictions I feel. I admit to still being drawn in part to the Western idea of ikigai, whilst at the same time resisting the pressure it engenders. I value the original focus on ‘what makes life worth living’ (Kamiya 1966). For me writing is one such thing.

On reading further I find myself drawn not only to ikigai but also to wabi-sabi and kokoro. Wabi-sabi refers to an aesthetic and ethical sensibility that values impermanence, modesty, and imperfection while kokoro refers to the heart‑mind: the emotional, moral, and relational core through which we acknowledge and respond to the world. Put simply kokoro gestures towards a life well-lived. 

When read together, wabi-sabi and kokoro offer a way of understanding how perception and feeling are essential to meaning making; a central concept with Sociology. Read alongside wabi-sabi and kokoro, ma adds another dimension. Ma resists a neoliberal ideology by honouring the interval, the unfilled, unproductive pause, the silence, where perception slows and relational meaning becomes possible. Together these concepts suggest an ethic of attending gently, responding sincerely, and allowing the world’s imperfections to meet an equally imperfect but receptive self. This way of thinking helps me with my long‑standing commitment to the unheard. Wabi‑sabi teaches me to value the cracks and fractures in the stories people are told not to tell. Kokoro reminds me that listening to the unheard requires emotional presence as much as analytical skill. Ma shows me that silence, so often imposed on marginalised lives, can also be reclaimed as a space of recognition and becoming. And ikigai helps me understand why I return, again and again, to writing with, and for, those whose experiences are dismissed, diminished, or denied. I am learning that these concepts do not replace my sociological commitments; they deepen them. They offer language, texture, and ethical grounding for the work I have always done; attending to experiences and the lives that dominant frameworks overlook, and insisting that they matter.

I am enjoying this engagement with alternative epistemologies although I recognise my analysis as ‘basic’ and aim to learn more. I understand that Japanese culture is not monolithic, not inevitably more harmonious or anti‑neoliberal. My aim is to approach these ideas with cultural appreciation while remaining attentive to the risks of cultural appropriation

Beth Kempton, a British Japanologist, has written about both wabi-sabi and kokoro. For Kempton: 

Writing, just like any other creative act, is an instrument of the kokoro (2024: 148).

In a book entitled The Way of the Fearless Writer (Kempton, 2022) she suggests: 

We tend to put writing into categories, but writing is about so much more than putting words on paper in a certain format or with a particular purpose. It’s about listening. It’s about opening. And it’s about accessing what lives below the surface so that the ink spills beauty, insights, stories and truth….

Writing can be medicine for our modern ills. It can be a tool to help us excavate our lives and begin to understand ourselves and others. It can help us grapple with desire, navigate change, cope with stress, celebrate, offer thanks, grieve, heal, and inspire others…. (p6-7).

And: 

We just have to keep showing up with courage, humility and grace as we cross the threshold between the mundane and the sacred every single time we choose to write, never quite knowing what will happen next (p221).

I have been told that my writing is brave, that I am brave. I have also been told, by some academic colleagues, that my writing is untheoretical, self‑indulgent, even self‑promotional. These more negative views I challenge across all of my work. I argue, insist even, that we need more auto/biographical stories of misunderstood and misrepresented statuses and experiences, not fewer. As indicated here my recent research and reading is helping me to reflect even further on why this matters, why this is so. Wabi‑sabi reminds me that imperfection is not a flaw but a meaningful part of lived experience, a unique beauty that has its own and equal value. Kokoro affirms that acknowledging the emotional within the intellectual is not a methodological weakness but an ethical stance. Ma legitimises the pauses, hesitations, and silences that shape my work and ikigai helps me to articulate that my writing is not a performance of bravery but rather something I am drawn to; something ‘I can’t not do… like drawing breath.’

References

Blackie, S. (2022) Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of lLfe London: September Publishing. 

Kamiya, M. (1966) Ikigai ni Tsuite, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo.

Kempton, B. (2022) The Way of the Fearless Writer London: Piatkus.

Kempton, B. (2024) Kokoro: Japanese Wisdom for a Life Well Lived London: Piatkus.

Letherby, G. (2015) ‘Bathwater, babies and other losses: a personal and academic story’ Mortality: Promoting the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying 20(2):128–144.

Letherby, G. (2018) The Sociological Imagination and Feminist Auto/Biographical Approaches’ in Matthews, C,  Edgington,  U. Channon,  A. (eds.) Tales of Teaching with Sociological Imagination Singapore: Springer Press pp153-169.

 

Letherby, G. (2020) ‘Gendered-Sensitive Method/ologies’ in Robinson, C. and Richardson, D. (eds.) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies (5^th edition) London: Palgrave, pp58-75.

 

Letherby, G. (2022) ‘Thirty Years and Counting: An-other auto/biographical story’ Auto/Biography Review 3(1): 13–31.

 

Letherby, G. (2025) ‘Living to Write or Writing to Live?’ The Contemporary Women's Writing Association (CWWA), Annual Conference (Falmouth University, June).

 

Mills, C. W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

 

Monbiot, G. (2017) Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis London: Verso Books. 

Morgan, D. (1998) 'Sociological Imagination and Imagining Sociologies: bodies, auto/biographies and other mysteries' Sociology 32(4): 647-663.ociological Imaginations and

.

 

Ribbens, J. (1993)  ‘Facts  or  Fiction?:  aspects  of  the  use  of  autobiographical  writing  in undergraduate sociology’ Sociology 27(1): 81-92.

 

Richardson, L. (1994) ‘Writing: a method of inquiry’ in N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds.) A Handbook of Qualitative Research (1^st Edition) Thousand Oaks: Sage pp516-529. 

Stanley, L. (1993) ‘On Auto/Biography in Sociology’ Sociology 27(1): 41-52.

Yuval-Davis, N. (2006) ‘Belonging and the politics of belonging’ Patterns of Prejudice 40(3): 195-214. 

Spring and Early Summer Work

I’ve had a busy and enjoyable few weeks mostly facilitating writing retreats and creative writing for academics workshops (with a conference paper thrown into the mix too): 

Academic Writing Retreat for colleagues from the Institute of Education, Sciences, University of Plymouth (14^th-15^th May 2025) 

Academic Writing Retreat for colleagues from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Greenwich (2^nd-5^th June 2025) 

‘Auto/Biographical Reflections on Death and Loss Across the Lifecourse (some personal reflections and discussion of publishing opportunities)’ (Workshop) Centre for Death and Dying (CDAS) University of Bath Annual Conference (13^th June 2025) 

‘Creative Writing for Academics: methodologies, motivations and impacts’ Workshop for the International Security and Sustainability and the Gender Research Group, Nottingham Trent University (17^th June 2025) 

You’re a Woman who Writes: Workshop on navigating your writing identity (with Bethan Michael-Fox, Open University and Halle Merrick, Falmouth University) Contemporary Women’s Writing Association Conference, Falmouth University (18^th June 2025) 

‘Living to Write or Writing to Live’: one woman’s reflections’ Paper presented at the Contemporary Women’s Writing Association Conference, Falmouth University (18^th June 2025) 

More to come in the next few weeks… 

If you are interested in knowing about Retreats and Workshops please take a look at my website www.gayle.letherby.co.uk OR email me at: gayle.letherby@plymouth.ac.uk enquires@gayle-letherby.co.uk 

*** 

I often start Retreats and Workshops with a free-writing exercise. Free-writing has many benefits and can help the writer to:   

•      Get something on a blank page / warm up the writing muscles

•      Overcome inner censors

•      Follow a stream of consciousness without trying for logic

•      Move away from other kinds of writing (academic, correspondence, professional etc)

It can enable us to:  

•      Find the/OUR ‘self’ in our writing

•      Discover thoughts we generally keep deeply hidden

•      Write Ourself/ves out of a block or bind

•      Get to know a character / play with a new idea 

The writing doesn’t need to make sense, can be clumsy and cliched, repetitive and contradictory…. The ‘aim’ (but as I’ve said there are no rules) is to keep writing including … or ‘I’m stuck’ or similar, rather than stopping. Free-writing can be done with pen and paper, or on a phone or a laptop. It can include images in addition to words. 

Sometimes, as I’ve written previously, I follow this exercise with one were participants use some of the words shared by others to write a piece of memoir or fiction, a poem or a song… Here’s the piece I wrote at one of the workshops above with the words of others underlined: 

It’s a beautiful afternoon; full of sunshine, seagulls and lawnmowers. I’m indoors, not stuck, but happily so, not engaging in procrastination, but writing alongside my workshop participants for this exercise I’ve set: ‘write something, anything, using at least eight words from others’. I’m on Teams. The workshop participants are together in a room at their institution. We’ve got past the inevitable technical hiccup and all in quiet and calm. There’s cake for them.  I’ve just expressed my feelings of disappointment at not being able to share in the treat. It’s enriching to be with people in this way. To be working together, thinking together like this about different ways to work, to share beyond the traditional quoting and counting. To find order or bring creative chaos. Everything, anything is possible. What a positive way to spend an afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing ‘Consequences’ at Writing Retreats and Workshops

Do you remember playing ‘Consequences’ as a child, or maybe even more recently? In case not, and briefly: each player is given a sheet of paper, and everyone writes down the first line of a story. They then fold the paper over so their words cannot be seen and pass the paper on to the next/another player who writes the second line of their story … and so it continues until a decision is made to read the stories out. There are variations, which are a bit more prescriptive with reference to characters or events for example. There’s a picture version too; the first person draws a head, the next the top part of the torso and so on until the knees and toes are reached and the ‘person’ is completed. Not surprisingly it’s also possible now to play the game online. But the paper and pen ‘let’s create a free-style story’ is the version I remember playing myself.

At a Creative Writing Workshop I facilitated at the Fish Factory Arts Space in Penryn, Cornwall, towards the end of last year I decided to adapt the ‘Consequences’ game I remember as an warm up exercise. I asked participants to:

•      Write a little about yourself: For example, your interests, job, passions, favourite place, food, hobby…

Fold and pass on.

•      Write a couple of sentences about you motivations for coming to the workshops and your hopes for this evening…

Fold and pass on

•      Write or paraphrase a line or two from a favourite book, poem, film, song…

Fold and pass on. Reveal and read.

It worked quite well as an icebreaker and a few participants read out the 'story' in front of them before we moved on to other exercises. I wasn’t completely satisfied though and felt that more might be done with the game.

A few weeks ago I facilitated an Academic Writing Retreat for Medical Education colleagues at the University of Plymouth. I always include two or three ‘creative interludes’ in more traditional writing retreats and have found these to be useful in a number of ways; not least in pausing from academic writing convention and shaking up the writing muscles a little.  Mid-afternoon on the first day of two the interlude was a game of ‘Consequences’. This time the instructions were a little different. Thus:

Write about three aspects of your academic story. After completing each part fold the paper over and pass to someone else (not necessarily the person next to you).

 

•      Your job title, or a previous one. 

•      A sentence or two on your current role. 

•     A short paragraph; three or four sentences, on what you are working on today (and tomorrow) …

Next I asked participants to pass on once more before revealing the story of the composite person in front of  them. 

There was a second part to the exercise this time. Thus: 

In EIGHT MINUTES Write something, for a non-academic audience, about the ‘story’ in front of you…

•  a press release
• a review
• a piece of fiction/poem/song
• OR?

The results were amazing and included an advert for a wellness retreat as well as songs, poems and more. Here is a Rap written by my friend and colleague Tracey Collett:

AN ODE TO SCHOLARSHIP

I’m an AP* in a Medical School.

I teach Anatomy,

from the toes to the head.

But that’s not all.

No I’m a super human being.

I’m the roots of the Anatomy scene.

IN-CLU-SI-VI-TY,

is the name of my game.

TECHNOLOGY,

things will not remain the same.

 

I’m an AP in a Medical School.

I’ve got an MD.

I’m an AP in a Medical School.

I’ve got an MD.

But, it hasn’t gone to my head.

 

I’m thinking about the humans that I see

Working and developing a new Philosophy.

What do students value?

How do students learn?

My work is going to lead to an educational turn.

 

This is an ode to the scholarly ship.

It’s leading to change and it’s really the pip.

*AP – Associate Professor

 

A week later towards the end of a Creative Writing Workshop with a group of community food researchers (again in Plymouth), I asked participants to respond to the following (again hiding their writing from view before passing the paper on to another person in the room), this time introducing drawing, sketching, time-lines and body maps alongside words:

•  A fact about you that people here might not know about. 
•  A sentence or two/image from one of your pieces today. 
•  A short paragraph or pictorial representation of –  your particular passions and concerns with reference to the issues we are focusing on today (or  not).
• PASS ON and REVEAL. 

 And then: 

Produce something (using words and/or images) for a non-academic audience, about the ‘story’ in front of you…

• a pen portrait
• an I-poem / a life/body map 
• a piece of fiction/poem/song

 

Again the results were wonderful, creative, thought provoking, emotionally evocative.

 

 ***

Playing ‘Consequences’, and playing with the idea of ‘Consequences’, has reminded me yet again how much fun creative writing/working can be and that the possibilities of what we might do and how we might do it are endless. Why not get a group of friends together and have a go…