Online Courses and Workshops

Book here for online courses and workshops.  As always we aim to host the country’s best poets and workshop leaders, with a strong emphasis on good mental health and wellbeing, and hope our new online offering will be accessible to those who can’t make it to the Poetry Pharmacy itself.  We are working on putting together an exciting program of innovative course leaders and content!

Subsidised places on our online courses and workshops are available –

for details please email

hello@poetrypharmacy.co.uk

Wild Words- Autumn

A course of daily writing prompts and exercises delivered to you by email through the month of October from poet Rhiannon Hooson

The Wild Words courses have been designed to ground your creativity in the turning year, and help you build a sustainable, daily creative habit by finding inspiration in the natural world around us. The course is built on the philosophy that creativity should be organic, low pressure, plentiful, and joyful, and the 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. It is suitable for writers of prose, poetry, or creative non-fiction, or anyone who would like to explore a more mindful creative practice.

Crows tumble past harrying a kite. By the stile into the bramble-clogged green lane huge white fungi have shelved out of the grass and gather water like shallow porcelain cups. Night comes huddling in early: fire and smoke and an apple, sliced in two to reveal the star at its heart.

We will take our inspiration from the Autumn season: we will chart the dark's slow advance, and the first soft pale frosts as they appear. We will explore the small pockets of strangeness left by sudden mushrooms and their dance around the trunks of trees. We will make new paths through the leaf-sifted air, and into the opening landscape and its secret distances. We will do the quiet work of creativity. We will light the candles. We will ponder and observe and listen. We will populate the autumn with stories, as it has always been.

Wild Words: Autumn costs £37 for a whole month of Autumn inspiration. Sign up at the link below, which will take you to a paypal payment page.

If you have any questions, please contact me at crhooson@gmail.com.

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.

 Book Here

How to Leave a Body – An Online Workshop with Holly Winter-Hughes
Book Here

Wednesday, October 15 · 7 - 9pm

Join Holly Winter-Hughes as she gently guides you through the process of using writing as a way to connect with ourselves and our embodied stories. She will also share key poems from her collection How to Leave a Body (Verve, May 2025) and talk about her writing process.

Holly used poetry to reconnect with her body after years of dissociation and embodied trauma. She is passionate about bringing the stories held in our bodies to the light, finding fresh way to tell them to deepen personal and community connection.

In this celebration of our bodies and our stories, we’ll bring our somatic experiences into our work, for more visceral, sensuous and engaging writing. This session is all about connection, healing and community.

The session will focus on autonomy and only going as deep as you wish in your own writing. You will be encouraged and supported in taking ownership of your words.

Her work has been commissioned by various organisations including Apples & Snakes, Live & Local and Arvon. She has performed extensively across the UK including at Ledbury Poetry Festival, for Raise the Bar, for Cheltenham Poetry Festival and for the BBC. She is passionate about raising the voices of underrepresented people and as such, is the founder and CEO of The Word Association CIC (who have published over 40 anthologies from marginalised communities with Holly at the helm). 

She is currently in the final stretch of a Masters degree in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, and starts her PhD in restorying the body in autumn 2025 at University of Birmingham. 

Holly is a widely published writer, most recently appearing in Atrium, Clarion, Impossible Archetype, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Lapidus and Tears in the Fence.

"Holly Winter-Hughes' visceral writing turns the human form inside-out, mapping the contours of trauma, abuse and hard-won resilience. It urges the reader to follow and 'Breathe deep to the creak of your heartwood'. Darkly imaginative and pearled with fresh phrase-making, these are poems that compel attention and linger."

John McCullough

www.hollywinterhughes.com

Coaching for Writers

Bespoke Coaching on Zoom with fully-qualified coach Julia Forster of Write Within

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.

To book a free 30-minute initial conversation with Julia and to find out more about the coaching and retreat packages available, visit: https://writewithin.wales/coaching/

“Julia has a special gift at understanding and encouraging others on the artistic path.”

– previous coaching client

Poetry Surgeries

A rare opportunity to work one on one with a professional poet

"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

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.

Find out more and to book rhiannonhooson.com