Online Courses, Coaching & Workshops

Bright green leaves still new to the air and dark grey clouds banked up behind the hill. In the wood, anemones are opening like a secret.  Spring stars rattle calls out of the owls all night, and the air is strung with the smell of wild garlic and its promise of plenty.

Rhiannon's Wild Words are low pressure writing courses which help you ground your creativity in the turning year, and help you build a sustainable, daily creative habit.  The courses are built on the philosophy that creativity should be organic, plentiful, and joyful. 

In April we will be celebrating all things spring: the rowdy dawns, the soft rains, the growing seedlings; the way the landscape learns again the language of living things.

HOW IT WORKS

Beginning on the first of April, you will receive a daily writing prompt delivered to your inbox until 30th.  You can spend as much - or as little - time on each prompt as you like, from ten minutes to two hours. 

Wild Words: Spring is for anyone who would like to live more creatively, write more, or make an authentic connection with the natural world, and for writers working in any genre, whether you're a beginner or a more experienced writer. 

Cost: £37 for a whole month of inspiration. 

Please note these courses aim to provide you with inspiration and a creative framework, and they do not include feedback.

The sign up button will take you to payment, but if you have any questions please do email me at crhooson@gmail.com

A course for poets who want to nurture their writing.

Over five weeks, you'll explore activities that encourage ‘soft fascination’ to help your poetry breathe, allowing you to return to the world replenished. After the course ends, Becky offers one-to-one feedback and an opportunity to read your work.

Becky will guide you through fallow experiences, offering a creative toolkit of prompts to experiment with.

Writing a full-length work involves a long haul, and the journey to completion is rarely linear. Coaching is a powerful modality which supports and strengthens your creative practice so that you experience breakthroughs and create inner shifts in how you relate to your work-in-progress.

Book a series of five or ten online coaching sessions with our very own Poetry Pharmacy coach Julia Forster who specialises in working with poets and who has worked with hundreds writers of all genres to support and sustain their artistic practice. Explore your individual and singular gift to create.

How it works

Book an initial, free 30-minute conversation with Julia here and then decide which of the various coaching packages you’d like to book. Blocks of five sessions (£325) or ten sessions (£520) are available, with the option to add on a four-night writer retreat in the stylish Writers’ Cabin in Machynlleth, mid-Wales.

Coaching sessions are sixty minutes long, held on Zoom and at a frequency to suit you. Julia’s approach is strength-based and compassionate and is tailored individually to each client. 

About Julia Forster

Julia is a fully-qualified coach, specialising in coaching authors and poets, who also hosts writers on self-lead retreats in a Writers’ Cabin near Machynlleth, mid-Wales. With a career in publishing spanning over 25 years, she works freelance in PR for independent presses and is Co-Director of Being A Writer at The Literary Consultancy where she facilitates the group coaching programme, Amplify. Poets and poetry festivals she has devised PR campaigns for include: Deborah Alma; Dean Atta; Inua Ellams; Jacqueline Saphra and BBC Contains Strong Language.

She has published a novel What a Way to Go (Atlantic Books) and a book of non- fiction Muses (Oldcastle Books), while her poetry pamphlet is currently on submission.

Writing a poem is a personal thing, but there are skills to be learnt too, especially where editing your work is concerned, and our Poetry Surgeries aim to help you through this process. They offer a rare opportunity to work one on one with a professional poet, who will address any specific difficulties you are having as well as giving in depth feedback on each poem.

Receive detailed one to one advice on up to four of your own poems from resident Poetry Pharmacy poet Rhiannon Hooson. Poetry Surgeries are by appointment and can take place either face to face at the Poetry Pharmacy, or online.  There is a £60 charge for an hour long consultation.

How it works

You will submit your work in advance by email, then visit the Poetry Pharmacy where you’ll receive private and detailed feedback on your poems over coffee. If you can’t make it to Shropshire, your surgery can take place online or via email!  

Our approach is constructive, supportive and positive, and you’ll go away with concrete ideas for your work as well as plenty to think about.

About Rhiannon

Rhiannon Hooson is a Welsh poet, author and editor. 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 shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award. In the last few years, she has been a Literature Wales bursary recipient, a Hay Festival Writer at Work, poetry editor of Creative Countryside magazine, and the judge of the PENfro festival poetry competition. She has a PhD in poetry from the University of Lancaster, and spent time living and working in Cumbria and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, before settling in the Welsh marches. Goliat, her second collection, is out now from Seren.

"Rhiannon was always so positive and clear in her feedback and I have come away with a host of new ideas that I would never have attempted without her support."

- Tina Cole