Introducing our Creative Bridges keynote speakers: Dawn Garisch

Lapidus co-Chair, Mel Perry, introduces the first of our keynote speakers for the Creative Bridges 2025 conference. Creative Bridges takes place online on 13th and 14th September 2025.

In six months’ time, Creative Bridges will be over and we’ll be looking back with proud smiles at the joy that we have shared together. Submissions are coming in and being considered by our team of reviewers. You, our members, and all those interested in this field have made this conference such a success over the last few years. Let’s keep the ball rolling!

I am delighted to announce our two keynote speakers: Dawn Garisch and Elizabeth Torres. I’ll introduce Elizabeth fully next month, but here is a brief introduction to Dawn, who lives in Cape Town. 

About Dawn Garisch

Dawn Garisch is a medical doctor and an award-winning author and poet. She has had seven novels, two collections of poetry, a non-fiction work, a short story collection and a memoir published. Four of her novels have been published in the UK, including Breaking Milk (Heloise Press, 2024), which had been short-listed for the CNA Sunday Times award in South Africa (2021). Her short story collection What Remains (Karavan, 2023) won the NIHSS and the Nadine Gordimer SALA awards in 2024 in that category.

She has had four plays produced, including a short play Knock Knock which was staged at The Grove Street Playhouse in NYC. Her short film Cry Me A Baby, a finalist in the M-Net New Directions competition, was produced for television and bought by Channel Four in the UK. She has written scripts for the TV edudrama Soul City, as well as for TV documentaries.

As a medical doctor involved in the medical humanities movement, she promotes the value of regular creative practice as an essential life skill. She is a founding member of the NPO the Life Righting Collective, that supports inclusivity and diversity through sponsorship to courses, teaching creative writing as a resource for wellbeing and community building in groups, tertiary institutions and NPOs.

She lives in Cape Town, sings in a duo called Further Ado with her partner, Ian Bell, also a medical doctor. She has two sons, and has recently become a grandmother, writing poems for the little girl to document this evolving miracle.

Get involved in Creative Bridges

Now that I’ve whetted your appetite with information about Dawn, I invite you to check out the Creative Bridges call for papers and make a submission for a presentation, workshop or panel. Maybe you’d like to offer a 10-minute complementary wellbeing session or be our Poet-in Conference. CB 25 needs you and we look forward to hearing from you.