Tentacles Poetry Workshops: Summer 4-week course

Come and create in community! Write poetry in this series of facilitated workshops for disabled writers. All levels welcome.

Join Tentacles for a new series of facilitated poetry workshops for anyone who considers themself to be d/Deaf, disabled, neurodivergent and/or chronically ill.

Work on developing your poetic voice and honing your craft in this series of poetry workshops, offered both in person and online. Meet with the same group each week, for 4 weeks, to explore new ways of expressing yourself through poetry. If you sign up for the series, you also get access to the Tentacles Discord to share and get feedback on poems and the opportunity to be part of a showcase performance and an anthology publication.

The workshops will be led by Neal Pike and August Stone, with guided writing exercises and opportunity to share work. We use a variety of art as inspiration: poems, music, visual art, to help get the creative juices flowing and get you writing new and exciting things.

Starting from 5th May, we'll be meeting every week for four weeks to write poetry together. These are cohort workshops, where we build a trust and knowledge of each other and our work throughout the weeks, so we expect everyone signed up to attend every session if possible. The workshops are going to be run as a hybrid of in-person and online, so please book your space according to how you would like to attend.

Summer 2026 course 2 dates:

• Tuesday 5th May
• Monday 11th May
• Monday 18th May
• Tuesday 26th May

We are running 5 courses in our 2025-26 series, and each course will be unique, so please feel free to sign up to multiple blocks if you’d like (though no pressure!). We will also be running some one-off masterclasses with published writers from across the UK between our 4-week courses, so look out for those too!

Tentacles is run by and for disabled people. We will ask you to provide a few personal details in advance to make sure we can meet your access needs, and if you have any questions, please get in touch with us!

Pricing

We know finances can be a barrier to accessing creative workshops, which is why we’ve set up ticketing as donation based. However, we ask that you consider the guidelines below for how much you pay for this course. You can choose what you pay based on your circumstances - you won’t be asked for any proof, we just ask that you are honest. We think it’s important to make workshops accessible for disabled people, and we also believe in valuing disabled people’s work! These prices cover all 4 weeks of workshops (6 hours tuition), plus editing support, anthology submission feedback and private community access.

• 0-£6: Discounted rate for those who would struggle to pay the standard workshop fee. For people who frequently stress about meeting basic needs and don’t always achieve them
• £7-£15: We think this range fits in the ‘standard fee rate’ and is for folks who stress about meeting basic needs but still regularly achieve them
• £16-35: The ‘pay it forward’ rate. For those who want to support initiatives like this and are able to financially do so

If you have a personal support/care assistant, you do not need to pay for them to attend. However, if you are planning to attend in person, please book an ‘in person assistant’ ticket for your PA as we need to know how many people are going to be in the room for health and safety reasons.

Host or Publisher Tentacles