Tenderly Online Writing Workshops 2025

Tenderly's 2025 workshops are about finding inspiration within and around us. They’re a creative experiment into what happens when we slow down, quieten external voices and become attuned to the messages being transmitted to us all the time, from nature, language, our desires and our bodies. Become a conduit for gentle-yet-powerful expression, for yourself, for your community, for the planet.

• 26th Jan, Talisman Tales: If objects around us could speak, what would they tell us? What wisdom do they hold that we need to hear? Can we imagine their capacities for healing? Bring a special object to the session and uncover the stories it has to tell.
  
• 23rd Feb, Let Nature Speak: Mother Nature is giving us messages all the time. This is our chance to tune in and listen. You’re invited to bring a piece of nature into the workshop and enter into a conversation with it.
  
• 16th March, Lyrics To Go: One for the music lovers! Bring your favourite lyric to the session and use it as a jumping-off point to tell stories, go on a journey and express yourself in ways you’ve never done before.
  
• 13th April, Word Wanderers: We all have a connection to language and words, even if we don’t see ourselves as ‘writers’. Give yourself permission to meditate on a word or phrase, and reveal what’s truly in your heart.
  
• 11th May, Body Ody Ody: Do you ever pause to think how miraculous our bodies are? This body, this temple is the only one carrying you through your life. What stories are contained within it? What messages are we yet to discover? Let’s find out.

I'm a poet, a mother, a once-founder of a 7-figure company and a Londoner living in Muscat (Oman).

I started Tenderly because I found myself creatively blocked, and wanted a no-pressure way to come back to my creative self in a gentle and nurturing environment. And I had a feeling I wasn't alone in that need.

A bit about me: I'm part of the 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE poetry collective, and have been published in a pamphlet collection, 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE (Rough Trade Books 2020) and a poetry collection of the same name (FEM Press 2018).

My work has also been included in anthologies such as:

• Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, edited by Padraig O’Tuama (which came from the podcast with the same name, where you can listen to my poem Coconut Oil)
• SLAM! You’re Gonna Wanna Hear This, chosen by Nikita Gill
• Night Feeds and Morning Songs: Honest, Fierce and Beautiful Poems About Motherhood, curated by Ana Sampson.

And in 2024 I won highly commended in the prestigious Bridport Poetry Prize for my poem Pantoum for the Gujarati Aunties of North West London.

Host or Publisher Tenderly