We will begin by looking inward, considering our individual experience, and what about it we might hope to express or share. We will consider our experiences of health and care as platforms for storytelling, asking ourselves, ‘what is the story we might wish to write?’ and ‘how might we tell these stories?’ If there are obstacles holding us back, we’ll briefly consider ‘what are they and how might we write about them, or in spite of them?’
Reading samples will provide us with impetus for new writing. We’ll consider works rooted in somatic storytelling, writing from a felt sense of our bodies and what our bodies might be telling us. We will also step back to reflect – ‘why write about health and illness at all?’ Learn the proven benefits to our own health and wellbeing when we write in an expressive or therapeutic way.
Course Outline
Session one of a series of live zoom workshops with tutor of expressive and therapeutic writing, and coach, Andrew Kauffmann. Including a combination of reading, discussion and writing exercises.
- Reading material provided outside of the Zoom session
- Resources on telling your story within safe boundaries and the benefits to expressive writing on health and care experiences
- Content rooted in the social model of disability, open to all people with health and care needs, and those who provide care
Paced to be a comfortable writing experience, suited to writers of all levels. There will be a short comfort break. There is no expectation to be on camera, if you don’t feel comfortable appearing on camera. Neither will there be any expectations around sharing what you’ve written with other participants. For returning participants, there will be an added focus in this coming series on writing in a range of experimental forms, mixing genres and without constraints or concern for convention on how we might write our story.
Series of Workshops
You can purchase an individual £25 ticket for each live workshop, or a combination £70 ticket which includes all three workshops at a £5 discount. These sessions are designed to work as a series, with a successive series of writing exercises to engage with to help develop your story.
Combination Ticket: Writing Our Health and Care Stories | £70 | All Three Workshops (Listed Below)
Workshop 1: Writing What´s Within | £25 | Wednesday 18th February 2026 | 2–3.30pm, UK Time (GMT / UTC+0)
Workshop 2: Health and Illness as Metaphors | £25 | Wednesday 11th March 2026 | 2–3.30pm, UK Time (GMT / UTC+0)
Workshop 3: Lay Bare Our Experience | £25 | Wednesday 1st April 2026 | 2–4.15pm, UK Time (BST / UTC+1)
Session three includes an optional further half hour of reflective discussion on how your story might be written or told between 3.45pm and 4.15pm.
Learning Online
These events will be recorded for the purpose of sending to ticket holders who can’t make an event, and those who require the recording to meet their access needs. If you purchase this ticket when a session has already taken place, you will be sent the recording. All recordings will be available to watch until the 14th April 2026, two weeks after the final workshop.
These workshops will take place on Zoom, so you will need to have access to the internet at the times given above. We will share Zoom links for each session via email the day before. You can also access the Zoom link via your Ticket Tailor booking.
