We have developed a local group which encourages networking and explores all aspects of our members' interests including (but not exclusively): writing for personal development, using creative writing therapeutically with others, and training There are two Lapidus groups in the region, one covering the Bradford/Leeds area and the other broadly Scarborough/York/Hull

Kate Evans is co-ordinator of the group and other members organise meetings

Leeds Meeting in August

A Day Workshop: Reconnecting Body and Mind - Writing from and to the Whole
Saturday 14 August, 2010, 11.00am-4.00pm at The Studio, Leeds Art Gallery, Free to Lapidus Members

A Lapidus West Yorkshire workshop led by Channa Cune. Participants will be invited to share in discovering how different writing experiences impact on them. We will write together and discuss the effects of various exercises on us. If you have fond memories of a writing exercise from your past experience, there will be room to share some of those.

Channa has been facilitating writing groups for 15 years in Israel. This year she will complete the MA programme in Creative Writing and Personal Development at the University of Sussex, a course uniquely relevant to conducting writing groups in a professional way. Her dissertation (in progress) is about understanding the processes of personal development taking place in writing groups from the perspective of the participants. Channa has edited a series of collected stories of and by child-survivors of the holocaust and their children (in Hebrew and Dutch). She writes fairytales and poetry for herself, for family, friends and clients. The exercises offered in the workshop are inspired by those developed at Sussex.

For further information and to book a place please phone coordinator Anne Maney on 01937 573691

Previous meetings:

Form and Emotion Writing Workshop with Jane Scargill , West Yorkshire Playhouse, February 2010. Can traditional verse forms - such as pantoum, Haiku or renga - help new or vulnerable writers give expression to difficult emotions? Can structure be liberating? What about older writers who are drawn to rhyme? Alternatively, do we feel more comfortable with free verse?

Forum Theatre, Leeds, October 2008 (meeting notes- Word document)
facilitated by Barry Fox with three actors from Urban Sprawl theatre company. Following principles originated by Augusto Boal, a group of thirteen interrupted an enacted scenario on a thorny issue and inserted comments which would influence the shape of the drama and allow key issues to be raised for further discussion and writing

Workshop with Char March, West Yorkshire Playhouse, February 2008. Writer in residence for Tonic, Leeds Hospitals Arts project (meeting notes - word document)

Conversations with Paintings at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery & Lister Park, Bradford, June 2007
(meeting notes- Word document)

Exploring the sense of self through a sense of place - my First Lapidus Day, February 2007 (meeting notes- Word document)

Getting Curious About the Critic, September 2006 with River Wolton, (meeting notes- Word document)

Survivors of Mental Distress, February 2006: writing and discussion with Terry Simpson, (meeting notes - Word document)

Workshop with John Fox, US National Association for Poetry Therapy, September 2005(meeting notes - Word document)

The Writer's Voice, February 2005 (meeting notes- Word document)

Inaugural Meeting, West Yorkshire Playhouse, September 2004. Writer in residence at a West Yorkshire hospice, Alex Krysinski, spoke inspiringly about her work summary by Martin Woof (Word document).