Would you like to take part in an open and honest conversation about grief? Would you like to hear from others who’ve experienced bereavement and tend to our grief together?

After experiencing loss, we (Chris Alton and Emily Simpson) both noticed a lack of opportunities for these conversations. By sharing our experiences through collaborative art making, we aim to create spaces where those living with loss can feel less alone and find community. For this series of workshops we are thinking about how we tend* to our grief through creative activities. Sessions will be hosted in Netherton Library and Feel Good Factory’s garden.

We invite people who’ve experienced grief to join us for a morning of conversation, collage, and creative writing. We will guide people through the process of making collaged poems in response to library books. There will also be moments of reflection and conversion about grief as we cut, stick and write together.

The session is free, all materials and equipment will be provided. No knowledge or previous experience of collage or creative writing is required. There will be practical support, prompts and worksheets to guide the creative process.

*Here we mean ‘tend to’ in the sense of taking care of or paying attention to someone or something, such as tending to a garden.

Please be Aware:

- These are stand-alone workshops. You do not have to attend all three, but are welcome to do so

- This workshop is for anyone who has experienced grief and is ready to talk about it and hear from others

- This event is for ages 18+ but parents and carers are welcome to bring those they look after if this makes attending possible.

-  The session will focus on our experience of grief and living with loss rather than the details of a person’s death. This is to avoid more distressing subject matter

-  Whilst Chris and Emily have led many workshops like this, they are not trained counsellors and this is not a counselling session

-  We ask participants to be respectful and sensitive towards other people and their experiences. We recognise that taking part in an event like this requires people to be vulnerable and so we ask participants to be mindful of this and considerate of each other’s boundaries and the different stages of grief we may be in.

Access: If you have any questions or access needs, please email hello@atthelibrary.co.uk. Feelgood Factory and Netherton Library are both fully wheelchair accessible.