Writing
“Human beings cannot always, or even optimally, address the big, the dark, the difficult, the shameful, the guilty, the criminal, the crazy head-on. We have to go sideways, downwards, away from without running away. We use a proxy or an avatar. And that's what stories let happen.” (Winterson, 2017, p.33)
As Ahmed attests, words help us rewrite our life into something more empowered, more emboldened, less passive, less undermined, less shit. “a life can be rewritten; how we can rewrite a life, letter by letter.” (Ahmed, 2017, p. 256)
“Forgive me quickly / forget me quickly. I know that I must forget you. The sea is somewhere anything can happen. You know when two seas come together there is deep pain and pleasure at the border. Tremor of conjoined hopes. Agony of separation after mixing. Let it flow. I sat down. Wrote: GUILT 90% SHAME 90% RAGE 90% FEAR 90% LOVE – “ (Berry, 2017, p.17)
“Women need to become literary "criminals," break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.”
― Kathy Acker
| Writing is a technology. To write requires access to education, but at once, word forms can be scrawled on the back of anything with a stub of a pencil; writing is an immediate form of expression and communication. Once words can be written; stories can be told. These words, my words, a tool for nuanced thought, reflection, analysis, reassembling self. Story-crafting as a form of sense making. Writing as a method of summoning and letting go. Writing as a process of getting out of my head. |
The worlds I often write into, are an act of refusal and cultivation of an alternative reality. They are worlds that document and name the intricacies of my sensations. They are worlds that quite literally, help me make sense of phenomenological, affective, and embodied states.
The worlds I write into are also spaces for me to acquire new knowledge, play with it in my hand-mind, look at ideas from different perspectives, dismantle them, take them apart and finally, if possible, put them to use in the complex conditions of everyday life. I’m increasingly interested in the practice of co-writing, of writing with others in a plural mash up of voices and styles. I’m also committed to lateral citation - referencing friends, lovers, more-than humans, as well as more conventional academic texts.
Publications
Together We Could (2026). Anarkiss. Reclaimation. Issue Two. Available here.
Listening Glossary (2026). Edited by Hannah Kemp -Welch. Silver Press. Available here.
Leonora Rides Her Horses. Aka Who Dunnit (2026). Nocturnes. In a Land Press.
I adore (d) you (2025) Sabean Zine. Centre for Material Thinking Press. Available here.
In Praise of Disquiet (2024). Intellect Press. Accessible here.
Caring to Listen (2022). University of the West of England. Available here.
I write infrequently on my substack Body Matters. You can find that here.