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

The Poetry Habit - Online Workshop with Sophie Howarth

Five Tuesdays 9 September  - 7 October 2025, 18.30-20.30 BST, via Zoom

£95

How can we make more space for poetry among all the pressing demands of daily life? Why would we want to? And if we did, what creative magic might happen?

The Poetry Habit introduces you to the transformative effects of a daily poetry prescription. We explore innovative ways to read, write, learn and share poetry, placing particular emphasis on cultivating everyday habits that inspire joy, deepen meaning and build creativity.

This course will reward anyone who wants to bring more wonder and connection into their daily life. It is designed to reward both those who are completely new to poetry and to bring fresh inspiration to more experienced poetry readers and writers. All that matters is to come with an open heart and mind.

Course Details

Week 1: Poetry Is Not A Luxury

The first session will explore ideas about why poetry matters and how it can help us navigate uncertain times. We’ll learn how to adopt a beginner’s mindset, discover new voices, broaden our tastes, and experiment with different ways of reading a poem.

Week 2: Tattoos on the Heart 

This week we'll focus on listening to poetry and on learning poems by heart. We'll dip into the slam scene, exploring different styles of performance poetry and consider ways of borrowing creative inspiration from others.

Week 3: Everyday Matters 

Our third session will be about finding magic in the mundane and fortifying ourselves with small moments of beauty: noticing the sunlight as it falls across a wooden floor or the sound of water as it's poured into a teapot, appreciating the small kindnesses in a waiting room or tiny epiphanies that can happen in the supermarket.

Week 4: Finding The Words 

The fourth session will focus on developing habits and practices for doing something creative every day. We’ll explore the challenges of working in imperfect conditions, defying inner critics, seeing and growing what’s good, and persevering with creative habits even when we feel like giving up.

Week 5: Sharing the Joy 

The final session is a collective celebration. We’ll share the fruits of our new habits, and marvel at just how many different ways our group have found to bring more poetry into both our own and others’ daily lives.

How It Works

The course runs on Zoom over five Tuesday evenings (18.30-20.30 GMT). Before each session you will be emailed with instructions for accessing the meeting.

This is a participatory course and you will be asked to take a supportive interest in other people’s creative development. For those who wish there will also be an opportunity to share poetry and build community in between sessions. 

Tickets are valid for the full course even if you cannot attend all dates. No partial course ticket is available.

 For more information and to book

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