Wild Writing 26
Wonderfully Other
Hello, wonderful wild ones - and welcome to those who have joined the Wild Women Writers’ Salons recently.
Thank you to everyone who joined Wild Women Writers Salon 24: Wonderfully Other: on disability, visibility, and the right to a rich and radiant life.
Sadly, Sophie Strand was unable to join us for the conversation, but I do recommend taking the time to read her latest book alongside the other salon books. The Body Is a Doorway: A Memoir A Journey Beyond Healing, Hope, and the Human.
I am still buzzing from the conversation — such an enriching, robust, and energising exchange of insight, experience, and creativity. A huge thank you also to my guest authors, Grace Quantock (Living Well with Chronic Illness), Rachel Charlton-Dailey (Ramping Up Rights), and Polly Atkin (Emergency Dream), to Sarah Forester and Rachel Amey, our wonderful BSL interpreters for the event (supported by Creative Scotland), Adam, for providing behind the scenes tech support, and to all of you for bringing your words and your wild to the salon and holding the space so gently. The salons are always shaped by those who share and support them. You are what makes this a community of change.
And this conversation felt like a particularly important one to make space for, as we see rights eroded for so many ‘othered’ people. As Rachel said, in her opening reading,
‘…More than anything, I want a world where disabled people don’t have to fight just to survive, but one where we can thrive. Disabled people deserve to live happy, sad, messy, sexy, content, full lives. And we deserve a world that encourages us to be able to be our whole selves without scorn, fear or mistreatment.
Until that day comes, we’ll be here fighting. Won’t you join us? After all, there’s nothing about us without ALL of us.…’ (Ramping up Rights - Rachel Charlton-Dailey)
We each deserve a world in which we can be our whole selves, without scorn, fear or mistreatment. This is what lives at the heart of the Wild Women Writers’ Salons, and I am thankful for everything that each of us does to bring that into reality.
So, whether you joined us live or are watching later, I am grateful for your presence.
With gratitude,
Victoria
Coming up this month …
In June, we will gather on Wednesday, 24th June, for Salon 25 — Growing Wild: gardens, wildness, and cultivating connection.
I’ll be joined by the wonderful Kate Bradbury (One Garden Against the World), JC Niala (The New Eden), Sarah Rigby (This Allotment) and Marian Boswall (The Kindest Garden). Details of the salon below.
Missed the salon?
If you missed it, don’t forget that if you upgrade to a paid subscription, you can access the recording below in this newsletter (and all recordings for the season as we go forward) — as well as extra author interviews, book recommendations and writing prompts! Plus, you will be helping support the behind-the-scenes work that makes the salons happen.
Wild Women Writers’ Salons is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Signposts
Here are a few signposts from our Salon 24 guests, for those who want to dive deeper…
Rachel Charlton-Dailey - Website
Polly Atkin - Website
Grace Quantock - Website
Follow Victoria Bennett https://www.instagram.com/beewyld/?hl=en
Follow Polly Atkin https://www.instagram.com/pollyrowena/?hl=en
Follow Grace Quantock https://www.instagram.com/grace_quantock/
Follow Rachel Charlton-Dailey https://www.instagram.com/rachelcdailey/
Join Grace’s Substack: Your Feminist Therapist Auntie Answers
Work with Grace: Get Pre-Appointment Pep Talks: 10 days of audio coaching sessions to prep you for challenging medical, work or life appointments. Plus, you’ll get my weekly Healing in Tough Times Newsletter —packed with resources, inclusive support & ways to live well when hurting.
Grace — TEDx Talk: Using Your Brokenness to Break Boundaries.
Additional resources…
https://www.disabilitydebrief.org/
https://www.disabilityculturelab.org/
https://disabilityarts.online/
https://cripticarts.org/
https://livetoyourlivingroom.com/introducing-the-oneaudience-method/
https://autisticadvocacy.org/2026/03/the-why-and-how-of-fighting-mask-bans/
https://notdeadyet.org/kristi-mcgarity-the-disability-rights-case-against-mask-bans/
JUNE SALON
Wednesday, 24th June 2026 — 7- 8.30 pm UK time
Growing Wild: gardens, wildness, and cultivating connection.
I’ve spent a great deal of time growing and thinking about gardens. About what they ask of us. About the patience required to grow something from seed and the ways a patch of ground can become a place of refuge, experimentation, and hope. Through them, I have found myself tending to the questions that live close to my heart: How do we care for what we love? What does it mean to belong to a place? What might become possible when we begin to think of ourselves not as separate from nature, but as part of it?
So…for our twenty-fifth Wild Women Writers’ Salon, I’m delighted to welcome four writers whose work explores these questions (and more) through gardens, allotments, and the wild places that push through the cracks.
Joining me will be:
Kate Bradbury, author of One Garden Against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate, which follows her efforts to create a wildlife-friendly garden while exploring the wider environmental challenges facing us all.
JC Niala, author of The New Eden: Wildlife in the City, and Discovering Our Shared Home, writes beautifully about the unexpected ways nature thrives in urban spaces, inviting us to reconsider cities as places of shared habitat, connection, and possibility.
Sarah Rigby, editor of This Allotment: Stories of Growing, Eating and Nurturing, an anthology celebrating the many ways growing food and tending land can shape our lives and communities.
Marian Boswall, author of The Kindest Garden: A Practical Guide to Regenerative Gardening, writes about gardening with greater attention and reciprocity, asking how we might care for the land in ways that support both ecological health and human wellbeing.
Together we’ll explore wildlife gardening, allotments, biodiversity, food growing, belonging, regeneration, and so much more! (Well, it is a Wild Women Writers’ Salon after all…)
Whether you grow vegetables, nurture a wildlife garden, care for a few pots on a windowsill, or simply enjoy reading about the natural world, we’d love you to join us.
Date: Wednesday 24th June
Time: 7 - 8.30pm BST
Where: Online & Recorded
Cost: Pay What You Can
Access Notes
100% Online
We prioritise comfort and self-care during the salons — and all the rest of the time too!
Recorded for delayed viewing with subtitles
Captions will be available during this event
All ticket holders receive a link to the recording after the event (within 7 - 10 days)
We believe accessibility should be built into every event, not added as an afterthought. In light of this, we endeavour to make our events BSL-supported as standard. At this time, thanks to funding from Creative Scotland, we can do this for a selection of our events in the current programme. This will be marked on the individual event if available.
About the authors:
The Wild Women Writers’ Salons are carefully curated to bring together writers whose words resonate with one another, creating a space for meaningful, creative conversation among authors, readers, and all those interested in living life a little more wildly. In Salon 24, I will be joined by:
Kate Bradbury
Author of One Garden Against the World
Kate Bradbury is an award-winning author, journalist, broadcaster, and one of the UK’s leading voices on wildlife gardening. She edits the wildlife pages of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, writes a regular Country Diary column for The Guardian, and has authored five books, including The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Wildlife Gardening for Everyone and Everything, and her latest book, One Garden Against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate.
A familiar face on BBC Gardeners’ World, Kate has also made several films for BBC Springwatch as part of its Gardenwatch campaign. Through her writing, broadcasting, public speaking, and advocacy work, she encourages people to see gardens, balconies, allotments, and shared green spaces as vital habitats within a wider ecological network. She is Patron of Froglife and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, and an Ambassador for Butterfly Conservation.
Passionate about helping wildlife thrive alongside people, Kate's work demonstrates how even the smallest acts of care can make a meaningful difference. Through her books, journalism, television work, and campaigning, she has inspired thousands of people to open their gardens to wildness, showing how a window box, balcony, allotment, or back garden can become part of a much larger story of nature's recovery. Her work offers a hopeful reminder that small acts, multiplied across many gardens, can bring about remarkable change.
Buy One Garden Against the World
J C Niala
Author of The New Eden
JC Niala is an award-winning writer, anthropologist, environmental historian, poet, and public scholar whose work explores the relationships between nature, culture, memory, and belonging. She is Head of Research, Teaching and Collections at the History of Science Museum, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Reuben College.
Her work spans writing, performance, museums, heritage, and environmental engagement, often bringing together history, storytelling, and public participation in imaginative ways. In 2022, her 1918 Allotment project won the Social History Society Public History Prize, using a recreated First World War-era allotment to explore food growing, community, collective memory, and public health.
Drawing on experiences of living in cities including Nairobi, London, New Delhi, and San Francisco, her latest book, The New Eden: Wildlife in the City, and Discovering Our Shared Home, combines memoir, social history, and cultural commentary to explore the surprising abundance of urban nature and what it means to live with wildlife rather than simply alongside it. Through her writing, research, and public engagement, JC invites us to imagine cities as shared habitats and to reconsider the connections between people, place, and the living world.
Sarah Rigby
Editor of This Allotment
Sarah Rigby is Publishing Director at Elliott & Thompson and has worked with many of the UK's most celebrated and award-winning writers on nature, landscape, environment, science, and place. Alongside her publishing work, she is an editor, book coach, and mentor, known for her wise and insightful guidance in helping writers develop and shape their ideas into compelling books.
Jumping over the fence, Sarah is the editor of This Allotment: Stories of Growing, Eating and Nurturing, an anthology bringing together thirteen writers to celebrate allotments as places of food growing, friendship, memory, labour, creativity, and community. Rich with stories of harvests, shared knowledge, migration, resilience, wildlife, and belonging, the collection explores how these small cultivated plots can become microcosms of the wider world.
With a reputation for thoughtful editorial collaborations and a commitment to nurturing distinctive voices, she has earned the mantle of one of the most respected editorial figures in contemporary nature and environmental publishing.
Marian Boswall
Author of The Kindest Garden
Marian Boswall is an award-winning landscape architect, horticulturalist, speaker, and author whose work is rooted in the belief that gardens can be places of kindness, connection, and renewal. Known for designing beautiful regenerative landscapes in sensitive places, she brings together ecological thinking, practical horticulture, and a deep respect for the land. Through her design practice, writing, and teaching, she has become a leading voice in the growing movement to create landscapes that restore both environmental and human wellbeing.
Her first book, Sustainable Garden, was shortlisted for the Garden Media Guild Awards. Her second, The Kindest Garden: A Practical Guide to Regenerative Gardening, won Gold at the Garden Media Guild Awards and offers an inspiring vision of gardening as a collaborative relationship with nature. Drawing on principles of regenerative design, Marian encourages us to look beyond individual plants to the broader systems that sustain life, from soil and water to wildlife, climate, and community. Through her work, she invites us to imagine gardens not simply as spaces we manage, but as living ecosystems in which we participate.
Introducing our Salon Host — Victoria Bennett
That is me! Founder of Wild Women Press and curator of the Wild Women Writers’ Salons. Host
I am an award-winning disabled writer, carer, and mother. A firm believer in everyone’s right to write their own story, I have dedicated much of my working life to nurturing spaces where people can do just that, founding Wild Women Press in 1999. I have curated and hosted the Wild Women Writers’ Salons since 2023, bringing together writers and readers from around the world to explore connection, care, and the wild edges of experience.
My latest book, The Apothecary By The Sea: A Year in an Orkney Garden, was released on 30th April by Elliot and Thompson.
‘… an enchanting and enriching mix of memoir, ecology and magic, and a heartfelt antidote to a fast-changing and often troubling world …’ - Annie Worsley, author of Windswept
‘… a gift for times of transition, it is a companion for those navigating thresholds in life, when old maps no longer serve and new ways of being are quietly forming …’ - JC Niala, author of This New Eden
My debut memoir, All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss, and an Apothecary Garden, was a 2024 Nautilus Book Award Winner (memoir)
‘… a beautiful, raw, meditative book on grief, mothering, and the wild both within and without… ’ (Kerri ni Dochartaigh)
‘… a haven in a cynical world — exactly the kind of book we need right now …’ (Catherine Simpson)
WHAT ARE THE WILD WOMEN WRITERS’ SALONS?
Each salon is carefully curated, with considerable thought given to pairing authors with their writing. This pairing allows us to bring something new to the conversation — a space where all the books intersect and begin to tell an additional story. All participants, including myself, read and responded to the selected books, engaging with them as readers, writers, and creative peers.
This is more than a literary panel — it’s a community. We’re creating a welcoming and inspiring space to gather, engage and inspire positive change. In this collaborative, creative space, the audience and authors come together to delve deeper into the words and what it means to write them.
How do the salons work? What is Pay What You Can?
I am a disabled author and carer, as well as the founder of Wild Women Press and the Wild Women Writers’ Salons. I am passionate about creating positive change, and I believe words can help us do this.
That is why I share mine, and why I have dedicated over half my life to creating spaces where others can share theirs. When we tell our stories and listen to others, we connect. In this ever-divisive world, it feels so important to do.
I run the salons from my home. This is not an organisation or a business, but it does need an income to survive, as do I.
No personal profit is made from the salons — all revenue generated from ticket sales and subscriptions is reinvested in the project to support the authors, those working behind the scenes, and to make the project possible in the future.
This year, I have been fortunate to receive a small grant from Creative Scotland for research and development, which will help me expand access and support the authors’ time and commitment, as well as my own.
However, it doesn’t cover the full cost of the programme, or the hours it takes to make it happen. That is where your support comes in.
The salons are offered as Pay-What-You-Can. As a disabled carer and a member of a low-income household, I know the reality of economic access. I am very aware that there are times in life when we can’t find those funds, no matter how much we want to. Please know that whatever you can pay is gratefully received and you are welcome.
If you can pay more, then having suggested price points as guides may be helpful.
A minimum ticket donation of £5 is suggested. This won’t cover the salon or the work, but it goes some way.
£8, £16, and £24 are realistic price points acknowledging the time, creativity, and energy generously given by our guest authors and all those involved in making the salons happen.
BUT please do not feel you cannot attend if you cannot meet these price points. If this is you right now, please know that you are still very much welcome.
All and any donations and paid subscriptions are vital to this space’s ecosystem
So let’s get the conversation started…
Want to read the books?
The salons are carefully curated to bring authors together to discuss their work, explore connections, and engage in creative practice. All the books can be read as stand-alone, but something magical happens when you read them together and carry on that conversation between the works.
Did you know that you can find all the authors’ books and recommended reads on our Bookshop page, or you can buy the author’s books directly (deliverable worldwide) from Sam Read Booksellers?
Why Upgrade to Paid?
Be part of the growing Wild Women Writers’ community
The salons are entirely unfunded. All paid subscriptions support the work behind the scenes to make the Wild Women Writers’ Salons and the newsletter happen. In exchange for your support, you get:
access to all previous newsletters
access to recordings of the full programme of salons;
additional interviews with our guest authors on their writing and inspirations;
additional reading recommendations from our guest authors;
bespoke writing prompts from our guest authors;
occasional additional writing opportunities and courses;
The chance to be part of a nurturing community of creative practice!
Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.
Writing Wild (Wild Women Writers’ Salons) is a reader-supported publication. By subscribing, you support the behind-the-scenes work that makes this project possible. Thank you.
Reminder to Book
Tickets for Salon 25 are on sale now — so make sure to book yourself on and treat yourself to a wonderfully wild experience.
Until then, go gently, keep connecting, and stay wild!
Victoria x
Self-Care Snippet
"It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol." — Brené Brown
