Writing Wild 24
Going where the wild things grow
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 22: Where The Wild Things Grow: Reclaiming Our Radical Wildness.
Whether you joined us live or are watching later, we are grateful for your presence. What a wonderfully wild and thoughtful conversation.A huge thank you also to my guest authors, L. Kiew, Jenny Knight, Anna Chapman Parker, and Brigit Anna McNeill, 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 as much by those who share them as by those speaking. You are what makes the salon a community of change.
With gratitude,
Victoria
Coming up this month …
In April, we will be taking a walk on the wild side with authors Kerri Andrews, Debbie North, Linda Cracknell, and Ursula Martin. Full details of the salon below!
Review of Wild Women Writers Salon 22
Reclaiming our radical wildness
Books featured:
Jenny Knight - ‘Wild Moon Rising’
Brigit Anna McNeill - ‘The Wild Within: What plants taught me about life, recovery and renewal’
Anna Chapman Parker - ‘Understorey: A Year Among Weeds’
L.Kiew - ‘More Than Weeds’
Listening to the women that are brought together by Vik in the salons is always a joy, an immersion in being, so it was delightful to be asked to share some thoughts that rose in me during Salon 22.
I’m currently reading ‘The Wild Within’ amid trying to focus on writing a dissertation on Celtic Rainforests. Now I feel that each of the books offered by this Salon’s authors will add some juiciness to my writing.
The humour and depth of sharing drew me into the conversation. I found that I resonated with each author, experiences mirroring aspects of their writing in some way, recalling times and events in my life, and how nature, particularly plants, flowers and trees have lifted me along the twists and turns of life’s journey.
The flowing conversation shared insights, profound, revealing and insightful. The following spoke to me in particular…
“No difference between ourselves and natural life forms…where is kinship? Weeds are resilient, largely not wanted.” (L. Kiew)
“Writing delves into the bog of us.” (Brigit Anna McNeill)
“Wildness is in me, outside of me, everything is an inside job.” (Jenny Knight)
“Fumitory, earthsmoke…a magical ability to hold onto dew by its leaves, twisting and turning, holding on, nourishing itself through hard circumstances.” (Anna Chapman Parker)
I am grateful for the introduction to each of these writers; the combination of styles, influences, and creative interpretation was inspiring.
Amanda Bond (Wild Edge Walker)
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.
Signposts
If you would like to connect further with L.Kiew, Jenny Knight, Anna Chapman Parker or Brigit Anna McNeill, or dig deeper into some of the themes and topics raised during the salon, check out these signposts from our guest authors:
L.Kiew — Follow on Instagram
Find out more on website
Dig deeper into the wild with L.Kiew as part of the Eco-Poetics and the Environment Poetry Workshop Series on July 7th: Plant a/ction: garden escapes
Suggested other Substack resources:
Jenny Knight — Follow on Instagram
Catch Jenny July 1st in conversation with Kate Sawyer at Waterstones, Norwich
Anna Chapman Parker — Follow on Instagram
For further links use Linktree
Brigit Anna McNeill — Follow on Instagram
Brigit’s Substack newsletter:
Catch Brigit at the following events:
Ashburton Arts Centre 16 / 04/ 26 - https://ashburtonarts.org.uk/events/brigit-anna-mcneill-rewilding-the-heart/
Bristol 09 / 04 / 26 - https://www.thesmallcitybookshop.co.uk/event-details/the-wild-within-with-brigit-anna-mcneill
Exeter Book Bag- 23 / 04 / 26
Restoring nature lit fest 16 / 05 / 26 - https://www.ambios.net/restoring-nature/
APRIL SALON
Thursday, 30th April 2026 — 7- 8.30 pm UK time
Tracing Footsteps
Walking as a Way of Writing, Remembering, and Returning to Ourselves
With Kerri Andrews, Debbie North, Linda Cracknell, and Ursula Martin.
What happens when we begin to walk, and keep walking? When the body moves through landscape, and the path becomes not just something we follow, but part of our story?
From long-distance journeys across continents to coastal encounters, from the constraints of motherhood to questions of access and inclusion, our guest writers explore how movement through landscape shapes language, identity, and belonging.
As we gather around the idea of walking as a creative and restorative act, we will ask how walking shapes language, identity, and belonging, both as a creative act and as a practice of remembering and returning to ourselves.
We will consider how access shapes our relationship with place. What does it mean to move through the world on different terms, at different paces, in different bodies? How do we walk while caring for others, or while carrying the weight of family history? And what happens when walking becomes a form of endurance, or a search for home?
So, why not join us for an evening of thoughtful conversation and shared exploration? Come as you are. However you arrive.
Whether you are a writer, a walker, or simply someone in need of a little space to think and breathe, this salon offers a place to pause, listen, and reconnect.
Tickets are pay-what-you-can.
The event is online and recorded for later viewing, with captions and BSL support in both.
Reserve your place and come take a walk on the wild side with us.
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 23, I will be joined by:
Debbie North
Access Adventure: The UK’s best trails and outdoor activities by wheelchair and on foot
Debbie North is a writer, accessibility advocate, speaker, and adventurer whose work challenges assumptions about who gets to experience the outdoors. Through Access Adventure, she explores how walking and wild spaces can become more inclusive, opening new ways to move through and connect with the world.
Her writing is grounded in lived experience and offers both practical insight and a powerful reimagining of access, adventure, and belonging.
Kerri Andrews
Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom
Kerri Andrews is a writer and academic whose work explores the relationship between walking, identity, and women’s lives. In her memoir Pathfinding, she reflects on walking as a practice shaped by motherhood, constraint, and the search for freedom.
Moving between personal experience and cultural reflection, the book traces how walking becomes a way of thinking, negotiating time and selfhood, and reclaiming space amid the demands of motherhood and daily life.
Her work brings a deeply personal perspective to the act of walking, revealing it not simply as an escape or a form of solitude, but as something entangled with care, responsibility, and the realities of women’s lives.
Linda Cracknell
Author of Sea Marked: Throwing a Line to a Coastal Path
Linda Cracknell is a writer of place whose work explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and creative practice. In Sea Marked, she undertakes a series of residencies along the coasts of Scotland, tracing the shifting boundary between land and sea.
Alongside these journeys, the book also turns toward kinship and inheritance, retracing family lines and uncovering stories held within both place and memory. The act of walking becomes a way of returning not only to landscape but also to the threads of a family story, partially lost and re-found. Blending observation, reflection, and research, Sea Marked gathers moments of attention to tidal edges, weather, and the textures of coastal life.
Her work is quiet, precise, and deeply attuned to place, revealing how walking can open pathways into both landscape and lineage.
Ursula Martin
Author of One Woman Walks Europe: from Wales to Ukraine and Back Again
Ursula Martin is a writer and long-distance walker who set out on an extraordinary 5,500-mile journey across Europe. In One Woman Walks Europe, she charts an epic and deeply personal journey of endurance and self-discovery. Walking through remote rural landscapes, often alone, she encounters both the physical demands of the path and the shifting terrain of her inner world. As she continues her journey, Ursula is drawn into a deeper relationship with the land and her own body. At its heart, the book grapples with questions of home, belonging, and connection, while also confronting the tension between independence and the human need for community.
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 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)
My forthcoming book, The Apothecary By The Sea: A Year in an Orkney Garden, is a lyrical and tender story of creating a wild apothecary garden on the Scottish archipelago of Orkney.
‘… 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
Due out on April 30th 2026!
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 23 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
“…Language is like a road, it cannot be perceived all at once because it unfolds in time, whether heard or read. This narrative or temporal element has made writing and walking resemble each other.…” (Rebecca Solnit)
