I enjoy talking to people who read my books, or any books!
A visit consists of two talks to appropriate age-groups, where I’ll read from my books, talk about writing and answer questions, plus a creative writing workshop for teachers and/or students.
(School visits cost £300 plus travel and accommodation expenses where necessary)
To arrange a visit please go to my contact page.
Taking Heart Medical Humanities Conference, Byron Bay, Australia
ASSOCIATION FOR MEDICAL HUMANITIES AUTUMN 2006
I am an honorary teaching fellow of the Peninsula Medical School, running Special Study Units in writing poetry. I have run many writing workshops for undergraduates and postgraduates over the last 10 years, mostly in this country, but also in Australia and Zimbabwe. This is an account of my trip to the ‘Taking Heart’ medical humanities conference at Byron Bay in Australia last July.
Boat trips and thyroid problems on the way over, there was a ten-hour delay in Brunei, waiting for a plane to complete the journey to Perth, where we should have changed flights, so I spent a delightful few hours in a small skiff on the Brunei River, in 40 degrees heat and 90% humidity spotting long nose monkeys and monitor lizards in the rain forest.
With the rest of the passengers I was taken to a hotel, where at least we could shower and change our underwear (I always have a spare pair of knickers in my hand luggage.) But I had managed to leave my thyroxine on the plane and should have taken 100 micrograms that morning. There was a bus full of Australian women at the hotel for lunch and I asked if any of them had a thyroid problem. More than half of them raised their hands! None had their drugs with them though, having left them at their own hotel.
While I was on my boat adventure an Australian fellow passenger had kindly organised my luggage to be removed from the airport to the hotel. So I was able to self medi-cate on my return. I arrived in Perth on 14th July and stayed at the homes of my niece and my Australian sister and met four of her six children and recovered from the journey. A week later I moved to
Melbourne, where I read from my novel The Burying Beetle at Readers bookstore in Hawthorne, Melbourne.
Pec-slapping
The main purpose of the trip was an eleven- day stint at Byron Bay, first at the Taking Heart medical humanities conference, and then the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. My digs were not at the expensive resort hotels where the other delegates stayed. I chose instead to stay in the heart of Byron at a B&B,
or rather, in the ‘studio in the garden’. It sounded good on the internet and very cheap but turned out to be a converted garage – garage doors still attached. It was pretty basic. Cement floor, single bed and shower/wc, sink
and kettle. I imagine in the summer it would be a cool room in which to hide from the heat of the sun. Luckily I had a hot water bottle with me.
My landlady took me for a walk on the coast path to the lighthouse, and we spotted a whale slapping its fin on the water. The Aussies call it pec-slapping! In my excitement I nearly trod on a huge blue-tongued lizard. Bush turkeys tiptoe in the low scrub, and I saw a Brahmini kite, a marvellous bird with a white belly and scarlet back.
Down to work
I read at the medical humanities conference to an audience of about forty and talked of the work I do with medical students, doctors and other healthcare staff. At the Writers’ Festival, my first event was a poetry workshop. I helped fourteen writers to write six poems each in three hours. I told them about Poetry Remedy – teaching patients and healthcare professionals to write creatively.
Several of the writers, teachers and therapists, suggested they should and could do something similar in Australia. I had an audience of 400 teenaged school- children, their teachers and parents for my reading from my novelThe Burying Beetle (Luath Press 05) and another similarly huge audience for a panel on Writing For Wellbeing. Stephanie Dowrick (who started the Women’s Press in UK ) now living and writing in Australia,
was on the panel, as was Gillie Bolton.
Afterwards, many people came up to me to say how wonderful they thought it was – the idea of teaching patients, medical students and healthcare professionals to write poetry. They were all impressed that Cornwall was
in the vanguard of this enlightened education.
Biceps and big men
On the last evening, a poetry evening, I read mostly from my new poetry collection – Because We Have Reached That Place (Oversteps 06). I nearly caused a riot. First I broke the microphone in an attempt to adjust the height to fit my 5 foot nothing frame. Laughter from the 60 or so people in the audience. I explained that my husband always said I didn’t know my own strength. More laughter. I said my first poem was called Big Men. Laughter. I explained I like big men probably because I am small and maybe because my first husband was small. Hilarious laughter. ‘No, no, I mean he was short, not little, short.’ By this time I was in hysterics, as were the people in the audience. The first line – ‘An aussie trucker with biceps’… had people in tears and rolling around the aisles. ‘That’s not funny,’ I said, but for some
reason it was. In my next life I’ll have a go at being a stand-up comedienne.
Ann Kelley
www.amh.ac.uk
