WordPlay workshops are led by me on occasional Saturdays throughout the year. They cost £20, occur on zoom and via email. See below for background information on my approach. Contact me via email for details and bookings: barney.bardsley@icloud.com. A few of the themes and content are listed below.
ELEMENTAL 20 January 2024. Exploring the wild side of nature and the world, in poems, prose and experimental free form writing.
MISSING 8 July 2023. We broadcast some of the pieces from this workshop on Love the Words – the weekly writing programme at the Seacroft, Leeds arts centre and recording studios, ChapelFM – in September 2023, and you can listen to a recording of it here. (Scroll down to Love the Words #228)
The SONG of the SEA 7 January 2023. A celebration of all things watery and tidal… You can listen to a recording of it here , (scroll down to Love the Words #208).
SUMMER July 2022. People had plenty of things to say on this occasion, about the heatwave of a few days before! ‘A searing heat induced lethargy/heat scoured lips, cracked and dry/ Air scorched nostrils…’
TRAVELLING May 2022. You can read about it here.
DARKNESS and LIGHT February 2022. Hear a discussion on this with fellow writer Peter Spafford here on Love the Words in March 2022, at ChapelFM, a lively Leeds arts centre and broadcasting station. And you can read about it in my blog here.
Creativity and Flow
I have been a writer for forty years now, and the way that I write has changed profoundly during that time. Experience, age, loss and new discovery, illness, dance, T’ai Chi, Reiki, travel, lockdown… Marriage, widowhood, motherhood and being single… All of these things have influenced the way that I approach the written word: have animated my mind and heart, and added juice and fire to the things that I write. (See my writing autobiography here)
For the past twenty years or more, I have also been working as a creative writing teacher, in the community, in cancer support centres, at Leeds Playhouse – as part of their Creative Engagement team, and independently too. I have run workshops for the Leeds Literary Festival and the Leeds Library. And everywhere I teach, I am consistently amazed by the creativity of people – even people who have never written before, except at school, and who have decided to pick up a pen and have a go, later – sometimes much, much later – in their lives.
Through the years, we have written about nature and the seasons, about the human body, about the city and the countryside, about travel and staying at home – about lockdown and isolation, and about friendship, community and joy. Nothing is off limits, and – always – people rise to the challenge, with verve and vitality.
Teaching what you want to learn
It is said that ‘you teach what you want to learn’. And I have learned a very great deal from all of the adults – thousands of them by now! – that I have worked with over the years.
Post-Covid, I went back to Leeds Playhouse, running sessions in person. But now I mainly run my own WordPlay workshops via zoom and email, for those who don’t live in Leeds, or who, for whatever reason, cannot leave their own homes. I am often invited to teach at festivals, and keep popping up all over the place, to run workshops in both conventional and unexpected places. My style is relaxed and friendly. I believe in encouragement and the free flow of energy in a writing session. And it pays off, in the beautiful words that people produce for me – and for themselves – in return.
As long as I am a writer, I will teach. And I plan on being a writer for the rest of my life. So, hand in hand, teacher and student, on we go, enjoying and writing about our lives to the fullest of our abilities, and with the richest of imaginative leaps, for as long as we possibly can.
A Handful of Earth by Barney Bardsley was published by John Murray
Copies still available here
Old Dog by Barney Bardsley was published by Simon and Schuster
Copies still available here
A new manuscript, called Dancing with bruised knees: A memoir of the body, is currently in progress. See my blogs and watch this space for future news.
Barefoot Barney 