1st - 31st January 2025

Wild Words: Winter is a course of themed seasonal writing prompts delivered each day in January via email, led by poet Rhiannon Hooson, and organised by the Poetry Pharmacy. 

Wild Words: Winter draws inspiration from the changing seasons, and is built on the philosophy that creativity should be organic, low pressure, plentiful, and joyful.  It's made up of daily writing prompts and exercises focused on the winter world around us.  These prompts allow you to devote as much or as little time to your creativity each day as you would like, from ten minutes to a couple of hours.

ABOUT THE COURSE

Frost holds the valley in both hands. A black swan whistles the path of alders above the river. Ice snaps like toffee under our boots: these are the edgelands of winter, where the light frays on a hoarfrost, and a quiet fox lingers under the bare rowans. The earth has seized into stone, but nearby, smoke rises before the frayed edge of the forest, and light dances against the cold like amber, like a long-awaited welcome.

We will make new paths through the snow and curl in warm burrows, down with the roots.  We will trace curliqued shapes in the frost, light candles, write back into the past and forward to the thaw.  Dark will gather close at the windows, edging our small pools of light.  We will do the quiet work of creativity.  We will stoke the fires.  We will populate this winter month with stories, as it has always been.

Wild Words: Winter will provide you with inspiration attuned to the changing seasons, and help you to build a sustainable, daily creative habit.  Suitable for both beginners and experienced writers of prose, poetry, and all forms of creative non-fiction, this course is for anyone who would like to live more creatively, write more, or make an authentic connection with the natural world.

ABOUT RHIANNON

Dr. Rhiannon Hooson is a Welsh poet, author, and editor who has taught Creative Writing for nearly twenty years.  She has won major awards for her work, including an Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors, and her first book, The Other City, was a finalist for the Wales Book of the Year award.  She has performed at literature festivals across the UK and in Europe, and her work has been featured in the Guardian, Magma, and Poetry Wales among others.  In the last few years, she has been writer in residence at the Hay Festival, winner of the First Chapter Award, and the judge of the PENfro festival poetry competition.  She has a PhD in poetry from the University of Lancaster, where she taught creative writing, and spent time living and working in Cumbria and Mongolia before settling in the Marches. Her latest book, Goliat, was recently published by Seren Books.