The Writers' HQ Writing As Resistance Festival
A month for writers who want to explore the radical, political and subversive nature of stories
This year’s theme is: Here Where We Live. When the world is on its knees, what does home mean, and how do we write it?
Exploring stories of history, diaspora and belonging.
If you’re already a Glorious Writing Beast, log in and book your events
This year's workshops
The 2026 Writers’ HQ Writing as Resistance Festival theme is Here Where We Live: an exploration of what home means, both physically and metaphysically, and how we write it.
The theme is inspired by Molly Crabapple’s history of the Jewish Labour Bund, Here Where We Live Is Our Country, and the Bundist principle of doikayt, or ‘hereness’. What does that mean from a starting point of a world on its knees?
What do we do when ‘here’ is destroyed? What ‘here’ is left after war or genocide or the destruction wrought by climate change? What does home mean in a world where the security of the ground under our feet is increasingly insecure? And how do we, as writers, and as humans just trying to rub along in this particular end-of-times, respond to it all?
The live workshops focus on the human face of history, diaspora and belonging.
Essays and courses
Climate change is the ultimate crisis; the insecurity of all insecurities. In a new text-based part of the festival, we get elbow-deep exploring the land and how do we write it (without losing our entire minds).
Whose Land is it Anyway?
An instructive essay with generative exercises exploring the different reasons people protect their homes – from the conservative, nationalist impulse through the spectrum to eco-activists and climate movements.
We’ll explore folk horror, eco-thrillers, land-defence narratives, and maybe a bit of eco-terrorism for good measure.
Queer Ecologies
A five-part course challenging binaries and embracing the entanglement of human and nature. This course aims to squirt some spores of queer ecological inspiration into your writing, regardless of genre.
This kind of writing can be playful, weird, subversive and a space for experiments. Be ready to get your hands dirty.
Keep on going
The WHQ Writing as Resistance Festival isn’t just about talking, we’re also doing. We’ll keep you on track with a series of accountability workshops to keep you going throughout the month.
This month was such a rebirth for me in terms of re-engaging with my craft as a writer. I’m now almost 10,000 words into the first draft of my novel and have also submitted three pieces of flash.
Christopher C
Got questions? GOOD. We have (some but not all of the answers)
How do I join any of the events?
You need to be a Glorious Writing Beast to join the WHQ Writing as Resistance Festival. Sign up using the big buttons at the top or bottom of the page.
If you are already a Glorious Writing Beast, just login and book on to the events as normal.
Are the events recorded?
All the workshops are recorded, will be on the website within 24 – 48 hours of the live session, and you can watch them any time.
The write-alongs and goal setting sessions are NOT recorded, but you can come talk to us in the forum any time and we’ll help you out.
Once published, the text-based part of the festival will be available any time.
I’m a little bit (maybe a lottle bit) scared. Help?!
Writing can be scary. Fulfilling your dreams can be scary. Prioritising yourself can be scary. Talking about all the terrifying things going on in the world right now is scary. You know what else is scary? Living in the shadow of what you could have done. Buckle up, writer. We’ve got your back. We’ll do this together.
Will I definitely get published and become a rockstar?
That’s on you, not us! We can support you along the way but you’ve got to put in the work. We will never make wild promises or guarantees of instant success and you should be VERY wary of anyone who does.
What is this event? Writers shouldn't do politics.
True, true. Unless you’re George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Aldous Huxley, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Conrad, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, Graham Greene, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert A. Heinlein, V. S. Naipaul, Franz Kafka, Naomi Alderman, Miguel de Cervantes, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Ray Bradbury, Khaled Hosseini, Ali Smith, Leone Ross, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Muriel Spark, Jonathan Franzen, Edna O’Brien, Boris Pasternak, T C Boyle, George Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Louise Erdrich, Christina Dalcher, Kamila Shamsie, Richard Powers, John Lanchester, Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith, Deborah Levy, Barbara Kingsolver, Damian Barr, or Ben Elton.
You aren't real writers. You swear!
Whatever.
- Over 10 million words written
- thousands of micro revolutions in fiction written
- a huge network of friends
- 50,000 cups of tea drunk
Become a Glorious Writing Beast and join every event in the WHQ Writing as Resistance Festival
Sign up right here
- All workshops in the festival
- Festival essay and course
- Festival accountability workshops
- Monthly online writing retreat
- Writer dashboard and project tracker
- PLUS: Over 25 mammoth creative writing courses
- ALSO: Always-on workshop library
Struggling with systemic oppression and a world that is hostile to pretty much everyone except for able bodied cishet white men from the Global North? Check our bursaries here.