Fast forward almost twenty years (twenty!), and I’m a single mother of an only son (now a teen), a long term home educator, writing mentor, and poet.

Having spent many years immersed in academic life (with its drive for perfection, complex theory, and high expectations), in 2009 I found myself drawn toward a different way of writing – one that valued authenticity, connection, and lived experience. Around the same time, I began writing poetry. This marked a somewhat seismic shift away from intellectual rigour and perfectionism (the requirement to be exceptional) and toward a more embodied, sensory, and experiential approach. My first poetry blog reflected this: the subtitle was ‘poems I write that I like”. Writing became not primarily a way of thinking, not an entirely intellectual endeavour, but instead a way of being in the world and a means of feeling words, touching and tasting them, loving the sounds they make. Writing became about an embodied experience of connection and presence in the world.

I still couldn’t give up mentoring and teaching, but my focus shifted. Guiding others became less about transmitting knowledge or training the students’ critical faculties, and more about supporting and fostering joyful discovery, creativity, and the development of a writer’s unique voice. It became much more about an equity of experience too: I believe that everyone is a writer, and that every act of writing is a creative act.

When language is approached sensorially – through touch, taste, sound, image, and feeling – writing becomes something you enter rather than master. Words are no longer obstacles or tests, but materials to play with, shape, and inhabit. In this way, writing opens itself to everyone, especially young people who may not yet trust that their voice is enough.

This philosophy now underpins everything I do at Word Oysters, supporting young writers to feel seen, heard, and confident in their work.