Fresh off the launch of her collection How to Leave a Body (Verve, May 2025), join Holly Winter-Hughes as she gently guides you through the process of using writing as a way to connect with ourselves and our embodied stories. She will also share key poems from the collection and speak about her writing process.
Holly used poetry to reconnect with her body after years of dissociation and embodied trauma. She is passionate about bringing the stories held in our bodies to the light, finding fresh way to tell them to deepen personal and community connection.
In this celebration of our bodies and our stories, we’ll bring our somatic experiences into our work, for more visceral, sensuous and engaging writing. This session is all about connection, healing and community.
The session will focus on autonomy and only going as deep as you wish in your own writing. You will be encouraged and supported in taking ownership of your words.
Holly Winter-Hughes is especially passionate about using writing to express the stories we hold in our bodies. This comes through in both her poetry and her facilitation. Her work has been commissioned by various organisations including Apples & Snakes, Live & Local and Arvon. She has performed extensively across the UK including at Ledbury Poetry Festival, for Raise the Bar, for Cheltenham Poetry Festival and for the BBC. She is passionate about raising the voices of underrepresented people and as such, is the founder and CEO of The Word Association CIC (who have published over 40 anthologies from marginalised communities with Holly at the helm). She is currently in the final stretch of a Masters degree in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, and starts her PhD in restorying the body in autumn 2025 at University of Birmingham. Holly is a widely published writer, most recently appearing in Atrium, Clarion, Impossible Archetype, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Lapidus and Tears in the Fence.
"Holly Winter-Hughes' visceral writing turns the human form inside-out, mapping the contours of trauma, abuse and hard-won resilience. It urges the reader to follow and 'Breathe deep to the creak of your heartwood'. Darkly imaginative and pearled with fresh phrase-making, these are poems that compel attention and linger."
John McCullough
“Holly's poetry leaves red shapes on my skin, and teeth marks. Unapologetically incandescent images twist tightly and then open into wide, revelatory spaces. The thin blade of a plastic-handled knife flashes in the dark of cold-roomed poems, but beside my shoulder as I read there is always an older, kinder spirit. It says, 'Look - this, yes, and this.' And yet, somehow, the spirit is still singing. I love this collection.”
Tom Hirons
“Holly writes with the whiplash of thunder.”
Antony Owen
“An electrifying poet with Plath-like power and potency. Such fire!”
Anna Saunders
www.hollywinterhughes.com
