Creative Bridges 2025
Writing for Wellbeing and Activism: Building Cultural Bridges
An International Two-Day Conference
13th–14th September 2025
12:00-19:30 & 10:00-17:00
Hosted by Lapidus International
Join Online
Early-bird tickets on sale now
Writing has the power to uncover, heal, and transform. As we write, we shape our world and ourselves.
Inspired by this belief, Lapidus International invites you to participate in a two-day conference that explores the intersections of writing, wellbeing, and activism. This conference is an opportunity for academics, practitioners, writers, and activists from around the world to share knowledge and engage in dialogue on the role of writing in personal healing and social transformation.
This gathering aims to bring together participants from various disciplines to investigate how writing for wellbeing can also serve as a vehicle for activism. We welcome diverse perspectives that examine writing as a method of supporting mental health, fostering resilience, and creating social change.
Keynote Speakers
Our keynote speakers for the 2025 conference can now be revealed!
Dawn Garisch
Dawn Garisch is a medical doctor, award-winning author, and poet. She has published seven novels, two poetry collections, a memoir, short stories, and non-fiction. Her latest novel, Breaking Milk (Heloise Press, 2024), was shortlisted for the CNA Sunday Times award. Her short story collection What Remains (Karavan, 2023) won the NIHSS and Nadine Gordimer SALA awards.
Dawn is a founding member of the Life Righting Collective, promoting creative writing for wellbeing and community. She lives in Cape Town, performs in a musical duo, and recently became a grandmother.
Elizabeth Torres
Elizabeth Torres, also known as Madam Neverstop, is a Colombian-American poet, multimedia artist, and translator. She has published over twenty poetry collections in several languages, including Lotería: Sorteo Nocturno / Nocturnal Sweepstakes, which won the 2022 Ambroggio Prize. Her recent works include Expediciones a la región furtiva (2023) and MISERABILIA (2024).
Her practice blends poetry, visual art, film, and sound to explore identity and migration. She holds degrees in Media & Film, Fine Arts, and an MFA in Writing for Performing Arts. Founder of Red Door Magazine and the Red Transmissions Podcast, she also created the Poetic Phonotheque, an international poetry archive.
Session Presenters
Our session presenters are below – more coming soon.
David Madden
Voicing Resilience: Poetry Therapy for Survivors of Sexual Violence
This workshop offers a hands-on introduction to poetry therapy techniques for supporting survivors of sexual violence. Based on three years of work in a rural Irish rape crisis centre, it will guide participants through trauma-informed writing exercises that foster self-expression, resilience, and community. Drawing from Memory, a published collection by past workshop participants, the session highlights the healing power of poetry and provides practical tools for using creative writing to support wellbeing and inspire social change.
Jenny Alexander
Breaking New Ground: How Writing Fiction Can Make Life Better
This taster session explores the therapeutic potential of fiction writing, showing how it can offer comfort, escape, and fresh perspective. Unlike traditional therapeutic writing, fiction lifts us out of our own experiences and into imaginative worlds, but the stories we make in imagination are not random; they are related to our everyday life in the same way as dreams. This session will explore how writing fiction can help us think more creatively about whatever is worrying or preoccupying us and find creative solutions. It is suitable for all writers, even those who have never written fiction before.
Tickets
We’re excited to announce that early-bird tickets for the Creative Bridges 2025 conference are now available to purchase through our website. We really appreciate your support and are offering a discount on tickets purchased early as a thank you. Please choose your tickets:
Member
Student/Low-Income
Pay It Forward
*Please note that Creative Bridges 2025 takes place entirely online. Only the keynote speeches will be recorded and available to view after the event.
Awards
We’re delighted to open nominations for this year’s Lapidus Awards, celebrating outstanding contributions to the field of creative writing for wellbeing. These awards honour individuals and projects whose work inspires, empowers, and uplifts through the written and spoken word.
Explore the award categories and nominate someone who’s making a difference:
Impactful Creative Voice Award – nominations opening soon
This award recognises an individual whose creative writing resonates deeply with audiences in the context of wellbeing, healing, or social change/activism. This may be poetry or prose (written, spoken, digital or in a hybrid form). The work will have made a powerful emotional, social, or cultural impact. The winner of this award will be someone who demonstrates courage, authenticity, and the ability to move and/or inspire others.
Outstanding Therapeutic Writing Research Award – nominations opening soon
This award honours exceptional research that contributes to the field of creative writing for wellbeing and/or creative writing for therapeutic purposes. It can be awarded to academic or practice-based research that provides new insights into the efficacy, methodologies, or theoretical frameworks of writing for wellbeing. The research should demonstrate originality, rigour, and practical relevance to those working in health, education, counselling, or community settings.
Diversity and Inclusion in Writing Award – nominations opening soon
This award acknowledges a person or project that champions diversity, equity, and inclusion through creative writing. It recognises efforts to amplify marginalised voices, challenge systemic inequalities, and create inclusive spaces for expression and storytelling. This could include work with underrepresented groups, those who have been discounted, prohibited, displaced and/or under-served. This may be multilingual or cross-cultural writing, or inclusive practices in creative writing workshops, publishing, or education.
Lapidus Lifetime Achievement Award will also be presented at the conference
This prestigious award is presented to an individual who has made a sustained and outstanding contribution to the field of creative writing for wellbeing over many years. It celebrates a lifetime of dedication—through practice, advocacy, research, or leadership. Someone who has advanced the mission of Lapidus and inspired others in the field. The recipient should exemplify integrity, vision, and a deep commitment to the healing power of words.
Contact Information
For general enquiries about the conference, please contact the conference organisers at creativebridges@lapidus.org.uk. Further details regarding the conference programme will be provided closer to the event.
Join us as we gather to explore and celebrate the personal, collective, and political power of words.