An illustrated history of Writers’ HQ
Two smol writers
Writers’ HQ is an idea that started with a frustrated Sarah trying to run away from her VERY LOUD family for five minutes’ peace to write. And boom, a monthly writing retreat fuelled by caffeine, biscuits, sandwiches and gold stars was born.
When Jo arrived at that first Brighton Writers’ Retreat – an equally time-starved, height-challenged, sweary, and tea-obsessed writer – the future really was a done deal.
Gather the nerfherders
We know all too well how hard it is to hold down a job, a family, and deal with the imposter syndrome and guilt that comes with trying to carve out time to write. And through those early retreats in Brighton, we quickly found a whole load of writers who felt the same and were desperate for some help.
There are plenty of lovely, sparkly writing courses out there. But most of them come with a whopper of a price tag and require taking time off work, which just isn’t feasible for most scruffy little writers. And so we decided SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
ACE and beyond
In 2016 we wrote a ten-gazillion page application to the Arts Council and were awarded a development grant to bring our procrastination-busting, arse-kicking, profanity-laden, low-cost writing courses to the great big world of the Internet. So now you can access all our literary awesomeness from the comfort of your laptop with our suite of online courses. Booyah. Thanks, Arts Council England, you’re ACE.
Anything to avoid actual writing
Once our grant period was over, we realised that we had a never ending stream of messages from people asking for retreats in their areas. So we thought “fuck it it’s not like we don’t have enough to do” and found a whole bunch of super awesome early-career writers to run retreats all over the country.
Mutate!
Over the last five years WHQ has grown and mutated in ways we couldn’t even imagine right back in them there early days (like, five minutes ago). In that time, we’ve helped our writers produce over one million words, drunk over 10,000 cups of tea, and said “fuck” at least 5,000 times.
Also in that time, Jo and Sarah have written a whole bunch of stories, had a whole bunch of rejections, won a couple of wordy prizes, and popped out some sprogs.
Cue rousing score
We’re not bestselling authors (yet!) but we are as deeply embedded in the journey towards literary greatness as you, and dagnamnit we’re not leaving you behind.
We’ve also seen our retreaters get published, get long listed, get short listed, win some stuff, and write some more stuff. Most importantly, you guys are writing. And finishing stuff. And editing. And then writing more. And more. And feeling good about it. And that’s really the point.
The Inner Sanctum
Sarah Lewis
Twitter: @fictionalsarah
Founder of original Brighton Writers Retreat. Constantly trying to escape her family to write while simultaneously reaching new heights of procrastination. Sarah writes endlessly and is never satisfied. She graduated in the top 20% of her MA creative writing class at UEA, won the David Higham Award, won an Arts Council grant to complete her first novel under the mentorship of critically acclaimed author Peter Hobbs, was one of the NWS10 talented early career writers, and gained a rarely given special mention in the BBC Short Story Award and then got completely sidetracked by Writers’ HQ and helping other writers sort their shit out. Procrastination level: 100!
Jo Gatford
Twitter: @jmgatford
Jo is also a human who procrastinates about writing by writing about writing. Her novel White Lies won the Luke Bitmead Bursary and was published by Legend Press in 2014. She’s also had a bunch of short fiction published, won some prizes, decided to do an MA in Shakespeare rather than write her next book, and is now using Writers’ HQ to extend that deadline even more- Wait… Shit. Jo runs the Brighton Writers’ Retreat and is the queen of editing, swearing on social media, and flip-chart facilitation.
Natalie Reilly
Twitter: @roughlynatalie
Natalie joined the inner sanctum in 2017, basically to stop us getting sidetracked (“Oooo, shiny thing. Let’s do this, not the thing I’ve said I’ll do 25 times.”) and kick our arses. She’s our head of social media and customer service so now you know the face behind the help button and our (in oho) excellent memes. When she’s not getting us to do everything we should be, or making herself lol whilst creating social posts, she’s studying for an MA in Digital Media, Culture and Society at the University of Brighton. She also writes but has to be reminded that she is a writer.
Our top-drawer regional reps
Aakriti Kaushik
Birmingham Writers’ Retreat
Aakriti is a PR professional and ex-journalist. She mostly writes about technical subjects related to STEM, engineering and electronics in her current PR life. Having trained as a journalist with The Hindustan Times, India’s leading national daily, some of her non-fiction work has focused on gender and women issues. She is currently working on her first fiction novel. Aakriti is also an accredited mindfulness meditation teacher, with a special interest in teaching MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) techniques, and a strong advocate of yoga.
Twitter: @aakritik
Alexa Radcliffe-Hart
Cambridge Writers’ Retreat
Mostly known as Lexi (screw you, Amazon), she has been writing and procrastinating with Sarah since the Brighton Writers’ Retreat days but officially joined the gang as the Cambridge rep in 2017. When not doing her marketing thang, she writes short stories that are beginning to find their place in the world. This year, she promises she will finish the novel she started at those first retreats in Brighton.
Twitter: @radcliffe_hart
Alex Clark
Cheltenham Writers’ Retreat
Alex Clark is a short story writer, novelist and poet. She spent the first half of her working life as an industrial archaeologist and stonemason, and often uses atmospheric buildings in her fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lighthouse Journal, Prole, MIR Online, Shooter Literary Magazine, and anthologies by The Fiction Desk. She is currently editing her first novel. When not writing or parenting, she can most often be found in her vegetable garden.
Twitter: @otheralexclark
Website: www.theotheralexclark.wordpress.com
Amanda Staples
Bristol Writers’ Retreat
Amanda has the usual pile of writing she can’t look at even with a pot of tea and a whisky chaser. Since 2016 she’s sent a lot of short stories to a lot of places. Some got into magazines and anthologies. She’s self-published a recipe book and finished a novel (hated it, started another). In 2017/18 her play was staged in Croydon and Bristol. She has performed at Bath Lit Fringe Fest, Bristol Lit Fest, Talking Tales and Writers Unchained events in Bristol. When not writing, she’s felting, pom pomming, or reading.
Twitter: @scribestaples1
Kathy Hoyle
Coventry Writers’ Retreat
Kathy is an ex trolly dolly who took to writing because it was preferable to staring at the walls in hotel rooms. She has since gained a BA (hons) and an MA in Creative Wiring and loves to write gritty short stories and flash fiction. She is working on a novel , powered by jammy dodgers and endless mugs of tea. She has been shortlisted for The Exeter Short Story Prize, the Fish short Memoir Prize, the Ellipsiszine Flash Fiction Collection Prize and the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize. Her work has appeared in various litmags such as Virtualzine, Cabinet of the Heed, Lunate Fiction and Reflex Fiction. She is Pushcart Prize nominee.
Twitter: @kathyhoyle1
Melissa Stirling Reid
Glasgow Writers’ Retreat
Melissa is a curious writer, reader, and photograph-taker who lives by the sea and drinks more tea than water. She recently completed a PhD in Creative Writing (ooh, fancy) and is currently revising the coming-of-age novel that she began as part of that. Her work – both fiction and creative nonfiction – has been published several places, including being broadcast on BBC Radio 4. During her PhD, Melissa founded Quotidian Literary Magazine, and since 2015, she has been teaching Creative Writing to undergrads and masters students at Strathclyde. She keeps an observational blog which is sort of a love letter to the ordinary.
Twitter: @melissasreid
Website: www.somethingnoticed.com
Monica Dickson
Leeds Writers’ Retreat
Monica writes short fiction and is working on making it longerer. Her stories have been read out on radio (East Leeds FM), published online (Ellipsis, Spelk, Dear Damsels and others) and printed in lit mags (Salomé, Firewords). Her work has also been shortlisted for the TSS Flash Fiction 400 competition. She lives with her husband, two daughters and a tendency to overthink everything.
Twitter: @Mon_Dickson
Website: www.writingandthelike.wordpress.com
Natasha White
Milton Keynes Writers’ Retreat
Natasha is a ghostwriter of private autobiographies for Life Book UK and the proud owner of many half-started notebooks. During term time she can be found trying to coax teens out from behind their smartphones and into the school library, where she works to instill a love of reading. She enjoys short stories and has started writing her own collection, but admits that she can often be found cleaning frantically or staring at shiny things instead hitting her word count.
Twitter: @nwhitecreative
Paul Macauley
Brighton Writers’ Retreat
Paul Macauley is a writer, director and maker of things like stories, theatre and short films. His play ‘Bug Camp’ won the New Writing South Award for Best New Play at Brighton Fringe. He hosts a podcast on creativity speaking with writers, artists, musicians and others to inspire and encourage people to make stuff. Right now he’s writing about four different things (five including this, but now this is done so: tick. Next!)
Twitter: @paul_macauley
Website: www.paulmacauley.net
Poppy O’Neill
Portsmouth Writers’ Retreat
Poppy runs the Portsmouth Writers’ Retreats and is a writer of short stories and nonfiction with a novel in the pipe-line. She has an MA in creative writing at the University of Chichester, and has been long listed for the Bristol Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her first book of children’s nonfiction was published by Summersdale in spring 2018.
Twitter: @P_O_Neill
Website: www.poppyoneill.wordpress.com
Valerie O’Riordan
Manchester Writers’ Retreat
Valerie is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Bolton, where she teaches fiction and cultural theory, and drinks too much coffee. She also writes short stories, and is working on a novel. Her fiction has been published in Tin House, The Lonely Crowd, Unthology, LitMag and other journals, and she’s an editor at The Forge Literary Magazine. She needs more sleep.
Twitter: @somefiasco
Veronique Kootstra
Edinburgh Writers’ Retreat
Veronique Kootstra is from the Netherlands but for over sixteen years has been living in Edinburgh. English is now the language she writes, and dreams, in. She writes short stories, flash fiction and is determined to finish her first novel in 2019 after a few (she lost count) false starts. She is slowly getting better at telling her inner critic to zip it even if she doesn’t always listen. Her work has appeared in The London Reader, 404 Ink literary magazine and The Scotsman as well as in online publications. When she’s not writing you can usually find her in the cinema.
Twitter: @vkootstra
