Lapidus Events

Romantic love gets plenty of attention, but what about the importance of friends to our health and wellbeing?

We’re exploring and celebrating friendship in this workshop for fun, but the research is clear: having a supportive network and closeness with others increases our resilience. In a city like London, where millions live and can still feel surprisingly alone, we all need connection.

An invitation to explore friendship in its many forms through visual and written prompts – some concrete, some abstract, playful and reflective – come see what inspires you on the day.

Alison Cable and Kate Poll are friends and share the editorial role at Lapidus Magazine.

About Alison

Alison, MA/MSc, is a creative facilitator based in north London with a background in literature, education, and writing for wellbeing. A former university lecturer in the US, she now lives in London, where she leads reading and writing workshops that invite reflection, creativity and connection. Alison serves on the Board of Lapidus International, volunteers with The Reader Organisation, and is a regular facilitator at the London Literary Salon.

About Kate 

Kate Poll, MSc is a creative facilitator based south of the river and loves spending time on it (less so in it but her kayaking skills are rubbish). She works 1:1 with individuals through both private practice and social prescribing, alongside facilitating groups across health, care, and community settings. Kate specialises in reflective writing for wellbeing and neuroinclusive creative practice, drawing on lived experience of neurodivergence, creative work, and caring roles.

Contact: magazine@lapidus.org.uk

Book early as spaces are limited

A Sunday afternoon workshop (3 -5.30pm) combining movement, awareness, poetry and expressive writing for creative inspiration and self-exploration.
The session is designed as a gentle retreat and will involve movement sequences based on the Feldenkrais Method done lying on the floor or a bed.

Guided writing with Greek Boreas, Celtic Cailleach & other winter spirits: blending two live circle sessions with slow, asynchronous and independent exploration.

Step into a season of stillness, myth, and creative tending.
This intimate hybrid experience weaves two live expressive-writing circles with gentle, private journaling and guided prompts between sessions, shared in a warm WhatsApp space and supported by supportive email follow-ups.

Together, we’ll walk with winter gods and ancestral figures (Boreas, Cailleach, and other winter spirits from European folklore) to explore what this season asks of us. In circle, you’ll be held as you write from your inner voice, witness others, and deepen your relationship with your quiet places. Between gatherings, you’ll continue your journey at your own pace, guided by prompts designed to nourish emotional hibernation, inner tending, and the quiet transformation winter offers.

A winter journey in community + on your own time.

Come write, reflect, and soften into the wisdom waiting beneath the snow.

We start on Sunday, the 14th December, with the first group call.

Group call dates:

Sunday, 14th December, 5 pm (CET) /12 pm (EST)
Sunday, 18th January 5 pm (CET) /12 pm (EST)
90-minutes calls

You’ll receive the asynchronous writing materials on weekly emails on Sundays: 21st, 28th of December, 4th and 11th January, with reads and writing prompts.
The calls won’t be recorded, but if you sign up, you will receive an audio recording guiding you through the materials.

Reclaim your voice. Rewrite your story. Restore connection

The Rauhnächte — the “rough nights” between the years — are traditionally a time for reflection, dreaming, and listening more closely to what stirs inside us. One of the most beautiful rituals of this season is to write 13 intentions for the coming year, burn one each night for 12 successive nights, and leave the final wish as the one you take responsibility for.

But choosing those wishes can be surprisingly difficult.

This workshop offers a series of somatic explorations and guided writing prompts to help you clarify what you truly want, uncover the inner obstacles that make wanting complicated, and name your truest and deepest intentions for your life right now — emotional, practical, intimate, wild, or quiet.

What you can expect:
– Writing prompts that explore why wanting is often tangled up with fear, conditioning, or habits
– Somatic practices to identify patterns, soften resistance, and listen to the body
– A gentle, creative process to generate 13 intentions for the coming year
– A deeper understanding of what you long for, and why
– A meaningful, personal ritual to carry into the sacred nights of winter

This workshop is for anyone who wants to enter the new year with more presence, self-permission, and inner alignment—and who feels drawn to a ritual that is both tender and quietly magical.

Led by Elaine Konopka, somatic practitioner, writer, and editor. She is the founder of The Attentive Body online and in Paris, where she teaches body awareness to help people live healthier, more intense lives. An avid believer in the power of the written word, she has been facilitating writing workshops for over a decade.

Sunday, December 14th, 2 – 4 pm UK time
Standard rate: 25 €
Supporter rate: 30 €

Explore the seasons of your self experience through the symbolism of Winter with writing & imagination

Depth writing is a transformational writing practice grounded in Jungian psychology aimed at supporting self-discovery & nurturing your innate creativity. This Winter depth writing workshop will be a chance to reflect on the cycles of your self-experience through the symbolism of Winter and the season’s associations with a time of dormancy and darkness where life appears to go underground and we’re invited to cultivate the inner light of imagination and dreams.

The workshop will be a chance to press pause on the busyness of life to reflect, share and write. It will include guided writing exercises and small group discussions. As the focus of depth writing is on process and on what comes up in the writing, rather than craft, there will never be any pressure to read anything out (although you can if you wish).

Who is it for?
Writers, creative & therapeutic practitioners, seekers & inner explorers who are on a journey of self-discovery and who are comfortable with diving deeper.

Whether you’re new to Lapidus or have been a part of our community for years, we want to help you make the most of your membership. 

Members can now book a bespoke, 1:1 Zoom call with our Membership Coordinator, to discuss how we can best support you through our events, networking and other membership offers.

What can you expect from a 1:1 membership call?

Calls last 20-30 minutes and are tailored to your needs. We can cover:

• The best way to find your feet in our friendly, global community
• A personal tour of our member benefits and how you can access them
• Suggested ways for you to share your experience and offerings via our platforms
• Discussing your areas of interest and how we can support your practice
• A fresh pair of eyes to identify new opportunities for you within our community
• Any other questions you may have or ways we can welcome and include you at Lapidus International

Where helpful, Flo will send a follow-up email with relevant links and opportunities for you to peruse in your own time.

How to book

Calls are available generally on Tuesday afternoons, 2-5pm UK time, and Friday mornings, 9am-12 noon UK time.

To book, please send an initial enquiry to membership@lapidus.org.uk. Flo will then reply to arrange a date and time.

Please note that 1:1 calls are a benefit that we offer to Lapidus International members. You must be a member to book a 1:1 call, and you can join our community from as little as £3.50 per month via our Membership Hub. 

How can therapeutic creative writing uncover a more nuanced story of a past self?

Presenter: Elisabeth Winkler
With autoethnography as methodology, I investigated the inner and outer worlds of my depersonalised adolescence. Through examining journals, a photograph, and historic poems, I used creative writing to compassionately revisit the past, rewriting a story of failure and fragmentation into a holistic one of mental health recovery.

This workshop focuses on poetic autoethnography (Hanauer, 2010 – 2022) as a research tool, using poetry’s particular qualities to respond to historic poems. It also draws on narrative therapy to incorporate “the lost relationship” with the self and, in doing so, arrive at a new understanding (White, 1988).

The session will be about 65 minutes, and includes time for questions, comments and creative writing. Please bring a fragment of your creative writing or poetry or a photograph from the past (which could be yesterday!) for a short written exercise.

Joining details

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81765344967

Meeting ID: 817 6534 4967

This session will be recorded and available on catch-up for a limited time. The recording will be added to this page a couple of days after the event. Please check back here from Tuesday 6th January for access to the recording.

About Elisabeth Winkler

Elisabeth Winkler has earned her living with words as a freelance journalist (published in all the broadsheets) and charity communications. A recent MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes enabled an exploration into her lived experience of depersonalisation and recovery. She is now a peer facilitator for the UK charity for depersonalisation and derealisation, Unreal, and writing about mental health.

About the Lapidus Living Research Community

The Lapidus Living Research Community (LLRC) meets on the first Saturday of every month via Zoom to discuss all things research, with a focus on qualitative arts-based research practices, theory and methods.

All Lapidus members are welcome, regardless of research experience. LLRC events are free. Use the Zoom link above to access the event.

Saturday January 3rd 2026, 10.30-12.30 and 4.00-6.00, and Sunday 4th, 10.30-12.30. £55 full course.

My creative goal-setting weekend is back! The best way to get what you want is to know what you want, and why you want it, in writing as in life. Knowing exactly what you want won’t mean you definitely get it, but not knowing, or being woolly about it, means you almost definitely won’t.

So start the new year with this fun weekend of workshops designed to help you identify the right writing goals for you in 2026 and start on the path to achieving them.

An invitation to writers of all levels (beginners are as welcome as the more experienced) — to loosen the ligaments, put perfection aside, and write for the quiet joy of discovery; to share a space where words unfold boldly, imperfectly, and in response to curiosity.

A block of three months offers a gentle rhythm of practice: a facilitated Anchor Session followed later in the month by a companion Open Writing Session, where you can return to your work, deepen the ideas sparked in the workshop, and write alongside others in quiet company.

How it works
Anchor Session (first Tuesday of each month, 5.00-7.00 pm, UK time):
A guided workshop exploring a theme, text, or prompt through discussion, short exercises and optional sharing. These sessions provide inspiration and direction for your writing practice.
Open Writing Session (third Tuesday of each month, 5:00–6:30 pm, UK time):
A lightly held, communal writing space in which you can develop your ideas, try new forms, or simply write in the company of others. Optional check-in and sharing at the end.

Block Pass: £105 for three months (includes three Anchor Sessions and three companion Open Writing Sessions). This block encourages continuity and engagement, with sessions scheduled monthly to help you build a routine.
Single Sessions: please enquire.

Block 1: January – March 2026
Anchor: 6 January | 3 February | 3 March
Open: 20 January | 17 February | 17 March

Six Wednesday evenings, 7th January- 11th February, 7.30-9.30 in zoom – £105 full course.
Everybody’s life is amazing, and writing about your own life makes you even more conscious of just how amazing it is.
In this course, we’ll be exploring the kind of awareness, skills and techniques you need in order to find your stories, seeking out the forgotten things for a more rich and textured remembering, and a more exciting writing experience.

Writing deeper into self-compassion and finding our own inner wisdom: this is a ten week online course (21st Jan – 25th March, 7pm – 9.15pm GMT).
This a gentle and spacious course filled with various poetic and writing prompts, pair work, and a deeper way of listening.

This is an innovative and inspiring approach to bring more compassion and understanding into our lives, through exploring resonance and accessing body wisdom.

£195 but concessions are available if financial circumstances are difficult, so please inquire.
Led by poet, writing for wellbeing practitioner and BFA certified Focusing Practitioner, Bethany Rivers (MA).

This is a ten week online course, starting on Weds 21st January, 7 – 9.15pm looking at how to discover and promote compassion to all the parts of ourselves, with various poetic and writing prompts, pair work, and a spacious and gentle way of listening.

This is an innovative and inspiring approach to bring more compassion and understanding into our lives, through exploring resonance and accessing body wisdom.

Discounts are available if financial circumstances are difficult, so please inquire.

Writing for Wellbeing Workshop

Theme: Reciprocity – Giving and Receiving.

11 am–12:30 pm, Friday 23rd January 2026.

In person event at The Conservatory, Scampston Walled Garden, Malton, YO17 8NG, hosted by The Bothies – a registered charity.

No prior knowledge required. Please bring a notebook and pen/pencil.

Booking essential. For more information and to book, please contact sandie@essenceofwriting.com

Workshop cost: £15 to the volunteer-led charity The Bothies, including tea or coffee. BACS payment in advance is preferred, or cash can be accepted on the day by arrangement. We will share details with you on booking.

We tend to think of writing for wellbeing as journalling and poetry, but this fun, fast creative workshop explores the feel-good possibilities of all the genres – fiction, memoir, non-fiction and poetry. No experience needed, just a pen and paper and a spirit of adventure.

The archetypes are universal elements of our psyche, and we can call on them for guidance and compassion. This is first of a series of three workshops will look at the Magical Child: source of wonder, awe, playfulness, and divine wisdom. Workshops can be attended individually. Discount for booking of all three. The other two workshops will look at Wise Sage and Mother Earth, each fall on the last Sunday of the month, 10am till 1pm.

6 workshops on consecutive Wednesday evenings beginning on 18th February, whole course £105.
In writing for wellbeing we tend to focus entirely on content and not at all on form, but understanding the craft of storytelling can help us to relive our experiences more fully and write with more confidence.
This course begins with a look at how to use the basic building blocks of storytelling – plotting, characterisation, voice and settings – to shape your lived experience into truthful but engaging stories and goes on to explore some of the different forms and styles of creative non-fiction, from essays and themed memoirs to prose poems and lyric essays.

This excursion-retreat weaves together the inspirational power of strikingly beautiful locations with literary pilgrimage, lively literary discussions, and expressive writing for wellbeing.

During this 12-day UK adventure, participants will be invited to respond to stirring poems and prose pieces of English, Welsh and Scottish authors within sites associated with their life and creative work. In this program, we will travel through varied landscapes, savor restful stays in delightfully scenic surroundings, and visit historically significant places within the Cotswolds, southeast Wales, Liverpool, the Lake District, and Edinburgh. As we savor the charms and literary vibe of these places, we will enjoy numerous opportunities to amplify our sensory perceptions, experience playful creativity, gather rejuvenating memories, and gain personal insight, as we respond to stimulating writing prompts.

Registration for this trip is now open, and the final date to pay your deposit and register is December 5, 2025, but you are encouraged to register as soon as possible to hold your place in the tour. Contact Geri Chavis at ggchavis@stkate.edu to receive a detailed brochure and for answers to any questions you have. Arrangements for this trip are made by Sovereign Tourism, based in London.

Program Leadership by Geri Chavis, Founder/Convener of MN Poetry Therapy Network, Professor Emerita, St. Catherine University.

Included in the cost of the programme:

• Teaching, facilitating and preparation of literary materials by Geri Chavis,
• Accompaniment by a London-based blue-badge guide throughout the tour,
• Accommodations  at Four Star Hotels,
• Private, deluxe motorcoach for transfer and touring, handling of luggage,
• Seventeen meals including full breakfast daily, and six dinners,
• Entrance fees and activities,
• All gratuities,
• Group travel insurance,
• Assistance along the way from Sovereign Tourism, based in London.