The Writers' HQ Writing As Resistance Festival

Stories to change the world

September 2025

Events for The Writers' HQ Writing As Resistance Festival 2025 are to be announced sooooon!

"A word after a word after a word is power" Margaret Atwood

Join Team WHQ and a carefully curated team of incredible authors for a month of panels, workshops, write-alongs and events exploring stories, writing and creativity as radical, political and powerful.

During September, we’re taking a deep dive into the rebellious, subversive nature of creativity and what that means for you, an individual writer sitting in front of a laptop wishing things were better, and for all of us, a community of humans existing together in a world where change often feels impossible.

We’re going to wade deep into the transformative possibilities of fiction and how stories can open portals, sow seeds of change, or lob a well-timed literary Molotov in the jaws of the machine. Fuck yeah!

But! The WHQ Writing as Resistance Festival isn’t just about talking, we’re also doing. With a series of  guided workshops, we are challenging all of you to write a brand new story, but one that’s unlike anything you’ve written before. 

Check last year's Writing As Resistance Festival Events

Free

Get published - Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

Part protest, part art, part ritual outsporing of our collective desires. We're all sending our stories in to the world at once! The fourth (and final) of the free Mass Submission Project workshops.
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

What does writing as resistance actually mean and who is doing it? Plus a toolkit for rebellious writers at large
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

How we might create stories that celebrate and reclaim our own rich culture and heritage by weaving colloquial dialect and cultural references and into our work to create a sense of place, person and story.
Gold Star Members

Editing - Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

How do we find the fundamental human truth in our writing and make something cohesive? The third of the free Mass Submission Project workshops.
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

What stories do we have a right to tell? Why does it matter whose stories get told or how different communities are represented in literature? With Kaia Allen-Bevan
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

What happens when we step away from the traditional three act structure or linear story and make a big ol’ mess of our stories?
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

Knowing how to write sex well can be tricky. This 90 minute writing session with Leone Ross will explore what makes good (and bad) sex writing, and how to write something authentic and impassioned.
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

There are so many narratives that we take for granted, so how do we find different stories and dismantle the assumptions we all make and that keep us locked in to the same damaging behaviours?
Free

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

Weaving the relationship between climate justice, our bodies, the word and stories, we explore what is at stake in the relationship between human and nonhuman being. The second in the Mass Submission Project workshops.
Gold Star Members

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

How can we use diverse genres to break through denial, challenge assumptions and inspire new thinking? Take a romp across genres with a lively panel discussion and practical exercises.
Free

Writing as Resistance Festival 2024

Explore why stories are important, how to get deeper into our own writing practice, and the power we can find in acts of communal creative imagining. The first of the free Mass Submission Project workshops.

You ready? Let’s gooooooo!

The Write A Novel Festival 2025 is available exclusively for Writers’ HQ Gold Star Members. Click the buttons and secure your spot.

Monthly Gold Star WHQer

The full WHQ shebang for superstar writers

£20/month

Annual Gold Star WHQer

One off payment. Save money. Eat more avocado toast

£190

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