Reflections from our Writers

At our Symposium in June 2024 we invited our writers to respond to prompts related to the themes of the Network.

Here are some of their contributions:

Five things you would like other writers working with themes related to death dying grief and loss to know...

Don't be afraid to tackle writing about something ‘difficult’ —  if you feel you want to do it, and it would be helpful, do it!
But look after yourself while you're doing it it's hard work and emotional but worth it, on lots of levels
Sharing writing about the complexity of emotions around those themes is helpful dash for you the writer and your readers/ listeners it helps us to learn develop compassion and be kinder to ourselves too.
You are brave!
Mortality is a thing for all of us —confronting it instead of hiding from it helps stop us sleepwalking through life

Write, please write.  Reading books/ essays/poems on the subject helps.
There’s grief in everything. Finding the language that helps you share your understanding or feelings of grief are an important aspect of the writing journey. 
Give writing space and time.  Know yourself.  Find balance between – feeling, being, holding in, releasing and letting go. 

The moments in your own writing which you may find uninspiring or dull are often the moments other will pick out as particularly impactful; we become immune sometimes to the scale and scope of our grief where can mean we are not the clearest-eyed readers for these texts.
There is always space for human, banality, earnest expression.
Sometimes there is a story you need to tell, but other times not.  Grief can remove the urgency from things, which is not to say they are not urgent.
Don’t shy away from the squeamish bits.  What is too much for one reader is exactly what another needs to feel seen.
This is more of a note to self: connecting with the heart of one other person is more than enough justification for putting your words out into the world.

Write without prescription (there’s no right way and no wrong way)
Subjectivity will not save you from repetition; of sentiment; of consolation
Keep your audience in mind

Be brave!
Get the words out, mostly for yourself…
…but also share if you can, for others
Let go of shame, it is life writing, not really the taboo of death or dying.
It’s heavy at times – but try to enjoy the creative process
Take your time, write what you can write, where you are
Take notes while you’re in the midst of it – uncertainty, doubt, crisis – you can make something of them later
Be kind to yourself. Take care of yourself. Walk, exercise, rest, take a break.
Editing and re-writing are writing and if you are writing about death, dying and grief it can open it all open again.  Give yourself time around this.
We need your words.

How hard it can be to essentially make an appointment to be sad if the material you’re working with is difficult.
How valuable the produced text might be for others coming afterwards
That this work is inherently valuable.

To know the product (your book etc) is only one part of the the process
That grief is all about process
That grief doesn’t always ‘come in waves’ and is not necessarily linear or something you will ‘get over’
That if you can, find somewhere to ___ your sorrow (familiar walk, a counsellor, a place that feels good)
That writing about grief isn’t necessarily ‘healing’ but making art from sorrow sometimes feels like all you can do with that rock in your chest
That birds will speak to you
That writing makes you aware of how your body feels
That you are not alone – every sorrow is individual but you are part of a community of people in the world who have loved, lost and still write
That grief will always be with you and that is a beautiful thing.  You will always connect with people in a different way now (big heart shining)

It’s okay to be pissed off
It’s okay to share negative feelings and experiences
It’s helpful to explore alternative (non-narrative) methods of storytelling
Serious / long-term illness is a lot like death
It’s hard to show your true feelings in writing.  When you hide them from your family.

You will get there
This won’t change anything, but it might change everything
Sleep.  Eat your veg.  Be still, and rage.
You and your grief will not be defined by your writing
Talk to others, if you can.

No one’s path will be the same, nor will your writing
Someone out there will want to – will need – what you’re writing
You cannot, from my experience, write yourself out of grief, but sometimes the writing can help.
Grief is universal
You cannot live without loss, sometimes it will feel like you can’t live (or write) with it.

It is painful to go back there
It hurts a lot
But it is also a necessary process
If you want to be done with it once and for all
Do it

That all the work, and the living, that goes into the writing is, I think, worthwhile and made more so by the written work itself.
This is how we grow.
There’s a courage in looking
As the woman who gave me the lift in Ireland said as all the cars that passed waved to us: ‘we’re all on the way to the same funeral.’
Enjoy the ride. And be grateful.

After your write a lot about grief, you may not want to write about it again for a long time
Your reading habits may change – maybe you can only read ‘lighter’ fiction – that’s okay!
To write about grief, you have to get to know your own grief
Writing about these themes can be transformative.

To be kind to themselves
That this is important work
That it helps to speak to other people creating in this area
That humour is allowed
That the writing can just be for them as a means to process or to distract

When it’s hard, scary, when you’re lost in the void, keep going, it’ll be okay
If you share (some) of your work, privately or publically, you are giving a gift to other people, some who maybe need a comparison during their grief, dying or entanglement with death
You are making it easier for people to face, comprehend, understand and talk (and think) about
You are tackling such an important part of being human
Keep going!!

Nothing, no question or subject, is off limits
Your uncertainties and fears about death are probably the same as everyone else’s
Your words will connect with someone, however personal they may feel
Avoid limericks
Speak to other writers – they will amost certainly ‘get it’ (if they are any good)

No matter how many weird looks you get when you explain what you’re writing about, there will always be someone who is grateful
It will probably sap your energy in some ways, even if you don’t expect it to. Give yourself breaks
If you don’t have personal experience to draw from, chat to someone who does as research
Don’t assume it’s all doom and gloom.  Even death can be funny.
Have a cup of tea and a slice of cake to hand nearby.

How near or far do you feel from achieving your personal DeathWrites goals?

Near ———————————|—————————————————————Far

                                         me

I had aimed to begin my novel on a Northumbrian saint, which I am now doing as part of a funded PhD. What I really wanted was to connect to other writers and community, which the network has fuelled.

Still writing the collection
At times, feel newer pieces are better and could junk the older pieces
Sometimes struggle with what ___, will something else happen
Writing (if uninspired by personal) sometimes runs out of steam
Sometimes you need breaks to heal if it is too much
The goal to publishing in some journals has been met
The goal of a pamphlet is still distant
The goal of healing – creating pathways into finding myself and understanding my grief giving it language is ongoing.

As a research assistant my personal goals were perhaps a bit more skills-focused. It’s been a fantastic opportunity to develop my arts admin skill set and I’ve really enjoyed the events organisation side of things. I’m able to really looking forward to pitching/editing the anthology.  The best part has been meeting the other writers and developing community which I hope will really last. 
In terms of my own writing, I’ve been grateful to participate in workshops and I’m sure some of the discussions will have refined and informed my thinking
It has been a real privileged to help care for the stories and conversations shared by such an open, honest group of people. I’ve no doubt that the work done here helps to make the world a better place.

Well!  At the start my goal was to use this time to write a whole book – a memoir about big losses. I haven’t achieved that (unsurprisingly as I have a very busy job/life). But I have instead written two essays – that I hadn’t anticipated writing – that have allowed me to address one specific longstanding anxiety (the book of remembrance) and another much more complex set of emotions (especially guilt).  In themselves, both these essays are my achievement, and I’m really happy to have written them; and now I don’t feel a bit memoir is what I need to write next!

I’ve a ‘book-length’ narrative to finish – that was my original goal.  I can see a way to organise the material (and write around the bits to join) through what I tried for the anthology.
I’ve developed other writing end products (jesus!) too along the way.
So near. So far. So long.

I am less avoidant about the subject and more confident about the ways I can creatively engage with matters I’d previously have bottled up.
I have developed a healthy, cathartic, regular writing practice in creative non-fiction that I am comfortable exploring and interrogating, and also sharing with others. It feels like a practice just beyond journalling, something that may help readers as well as myself as author.

This is a hard question!  My relationship with death and dying and grief has changed. It will always be an underlying, deep element of my writing and practice. I am where I need to be.

I have exceeded many of the goods and set out with. They have also changed and I have new ideas and focuses thanks to working on my project. I have a whole new strand to my writing life, have produced essays and fragments of non-fiction work that are a totally new discipline for me, and feel motivated to not only continue it, but find new ways to share it.

I think I am achieving a version of the goals albeit the goals are constantly morphing. I’ve managed to write about death and dying but I am not sure how public or high profile I would like the writing to be. I wanted to write about how living with terminal illness doesn’t preclude being fully alive.  And to valorise life in that circumstance. And I’m already doing this, thought not through DeathWrites as a network, especially.  So I am close to achieving a renewed version. I have essentially written half a memoir so far.

I feel like I am approaching my goals – abstract as they were; my poems have been herded together but sadly my objectives (to write about my dead dad) were countermanded by other deaths which my poems have had to attend to.

My DeathWrites project changed a lot since I first got the idea to revisit my personal journal and see how often I mentioned things related to death, grief, mourning, loss.  From the frequency of words I moved on to the frequency of themes. And some of those were so prominent, and surprising, that I veered off track somewhat and began to read – to re-read other texts.  Some I had read or heard lots of times before the funeral service of the church, traditional laments and dirges, epic poetry, folk songs. Others I discovered now. And essays. Until I began to write my own micro-essays accompanying the journal entries, then weaving them to create a tapestry of personal and communal writing about death extending in time, from antiquity to the present, and maybe even the future. So, in a way, I’m very far from my goal, but also very very close to it.

We haven’t achieved the goals we set as they were closely tied to a British Academy funding application to progress close archival work on William Soutar’s archive at the National Library of Scotland. We made the cut for funding selection (twice) but this part of a new lottery at BA and we didn’t get our app pulled out of the hat. But… we have been editing Soutar’s collected poetry for publication (due 2024) and so we have been able to work on a selection of extracts on the basis of the conversations we’ve been part of DeathWrites – and this has highlighted particular themes, forms of writing, and ideas for now and for the future. One project will include volumes of unpublished poetry and prose works, so input and output from DW will still influence this editorial project.   (KW & POW)

I still don’t know for certain what my personal DeathWrites goals are!  They’ve changed so much over the past tewo years. I suppose the core of what I wanted to ‘get’ from DeathWrites was the hope (that I’d be able to write frankly about what happened to my dad as a way of processing it, with the network as a ‘safe space’ to do so. I feel I’ve definitely achieved this!

I feel close!  I have managed to keep writing and be open to changes that have suggested themselves to me – the work has changed and developed  in surprising ways!  But I feel really happy about where I am now – nearly done, I think and then a BIG EDIT.

I feel pretty far from achieving them for a number of reasons that make sense to me: illness; the difficulty of the subject matter.  I am, however, very keen to continue with the work as life and health allows. One thing that helps is purpose/ deadlines.  It was therefore very useful to be asked to produce a piece for the anthology.

My goal was to write a collection of fairy tales – I did not do that!  Instead I started writing a collection and fell in love with a particular tale, which inspired my novel -  which will be published in October. So I’m far from my goals, but exactly where I want to be.

Still a long way – many more poems to write.  But as each one is an elegy in the wake of a real death, how can you justify wanting to write more?  Success for me is in the sharing of an idea rather than the production of work.

I feel like I’ve managed to think through a lot of my ideas over the course of DeathWrites but I still feel quite far from actually being able to write them.  This is mostly due to personal circumstances getting in the way and it’s been nice to know that there was a reason to keep going with my ideas/ that they were worthwhile. 

Being entirely honest – far!  But – for me, I feel like I’ve barely stopped running since the network start date – with the other folds of my life – and I do appreciate being busy – it feels useful and vital to me, but it has meant so little time for writing or reflection or basic life admi….! Hoping to reconnect with myself now as I come to a natural kind of ‘taking stock’ period of my life, and grateful to have the opportunity to do that work alongside others in the collective. 

Near and far and all the places between!  I think I will always write about death and grief, even if it’s slantwise or understory. My original idea pitched still awaits in some respect but I have written into the experience of bereavement and brief and, because death is a part of life, it weaves its way into my fiction and poetry. I have written a little way into the idea from 2 years ago, but more to come…

How has the DeathWrites Network impacted your writing process over the past 2+ years?

It has been wonderful to know that there are other writers actively writing into death, dying and grief.  It has felt less taboo and made it easier to deal with the hard side of things. Less lonely.  Even though I’ve not made it to as many sessions as I’d have like, it has still felt like a community. Thank you.  So much. I look forward to where it goes next and staying in touch. x

It has made me read more about the topic(s) and write less.  At some point these two activity may swap places and I will write more.  But not yet. As a side issue, it has helped me to finally write about my late father – previously I couldn’t find a way into that.

It’s given me momentum to write, and to write about these themes, and share writing in a safe space.

I’ve always written, but (still) never as much as I’d like to for so many reasons including life events, procrastination, a lack of self-confidence, lack of encouragement, a need to make money and support family. Being part of the network has definitely helped with a sense of validation, including that it’s okay to write about hese soul-mining topics.  I feel I’ve covered a lot of ground emotionally and tackled difficult personal stuff and I do feel the writing has been cathartic and brought me some level of ‘peace’ with things that have been bothering me for years.  Thank you all. X

It's given me the motivation and courage to try new things and apply for new opportunities.  It has been a grief-filled two years, and I’ve had the chance to reflect on resources and recommendations from the network, which have been inspiring and a comfort at the same time.

It made me question and re-negotiate my processes of personal writing (journalling), to adapt a more critical stance towards my practice of putting pen to paper, to no longer trust my memory, but to trust my instincts as a writer.

It’s helped motivate me to write and given me deadlines and goals to aim for, which has been really useful since I started working full-time. It’s also helped me explore what the best method is for me to write about my bereavement, which has also evolved over the past two years.

In the beginning I was new to loss and grief and the network gave me permission to be interested in topics which to other seemed gruesome or macabre.  That then manifested in me writing about these subjects in an in-person writing group that I participated in. The network gave me parameters, suggested materials, and the understanding that I wasn’t alone in being interested in delving into these subjects.

Unfortunately, I haven’t engaged as much with or been impacted by the network more fully because of my day job.  But again, in terms of permission: I have reduced my hours to 80% in order to write but also to enjoy life more!

It has encouraged me to keep going and reminded me that I’m not alone in wanting to write and explore the things in my heart.

I wish I’d had more time to write these past two years!  In a sense, this network has been a bit of a lifeline for me – an opportunity to keep the possibility of this part of myself going, even if I don’t have the time to really act on it and do the work. It’s been really valuable.

It’s been useful being in an non-academic network, working on an academic project, and it’s encouraged me to think more broadly about how to approach the topic of death and dying.

It’s been an undercurrent for my thinking and reading and how I think about the post-pandemic era, that is still very much with us, and also about what it means to write about Death and Dying and Grief when the whole world is in a different space.  I have not been writing for a stretch of time, but then I found a document of stories on my computer – linked by death – and I realised it had been a quiet thread, even in a period when I wasn’t writing as much.  The network itself was a way of connecting with other writers and seeing other people at work, and also struggling, was important.  It. Made a time of less contact, more connected.

It's been wonderful to have a group of people engaged in writing about grief and loss. Not necessarily all doing the same things but all concerned with the same issues. For a while we had a small sub-group that met up and that was useful.  Having things to ‘work towards’ e.g the newspaper, anthology and symposium were all useful as a way of encouraging work to be produced and finished.  The network has helped me see that my writing about grief is not just a lonely, personal project, but rather, I felt part of a fellowship of writers. In that sense it felt like serious, important work.  And I have made connections and friendships in the network that will continue beyond its end date.  Thank you (big heart!)

When I first started it was scattered outpouring, but slowly the conversations raised questions that allowed me to bring focus and dig deeper. I think I have improved as a writers.

It has given a structure to my writing on this subject and the discussions that have taken place have created thoughts and corrections in my own work.  The writing spaces have helped me to carve out time for the work, which has allowed me to produce words that otherwise probably wouldn’t exist.

Offered opportunities to shape and frame which I’ve been up to in the last while.  Some of this is through conversations ‘organised’ actively but mostly just through the pen and the thinking. I’ve enjoyed having an outlet for work as well as a motivation. And the grief thing is not to feel much in the way of pressure towards set ends – we define our own.

Being part of the network has given me confidence in my own thoughts and the writing I produce. Meeting other writers enabled me to see that writing/creativity is often messy, disjointed, non-linear.  **It’s been great to have a space where it’s okay not to be entirely positive/**

I’m not a creative writer, but I’ve read more widely around the area of death and dying as a result of my involvement in DW.  Also, I have a longer- term project in development that relates to a biographical project and so DW has been helpful in thinking through of these ideas. 

I think it’s hard to asses how the network has impacted my writing – but the existence of a community which I found severely lacking in my PhD has been immensely supportive both directly and indirectly. 

I have learned to trust my process (which is different for each book) more and have more patience with a book as I figure out what it will be.

I’ve enjoyed sharing my writing in progress w/fewer more select people. 

Resources or books you would recommend for others on dying, death, grief and loss

For loss of a child:

A Heart that Works, Rob Delaney’s memoir about loss of his son, (he did a great interview with Max Porter EIBF 2023)
The Still Point of the Turning World, Emily Rapp Black (NYT bestseller) – memoir
The Sad Book, Michael Rosen (also a book about covid)

You are Not Alone, Cariad Lloyd (and her Griefcast podcast)
The Last Act of Love, Cathy Rentzenbrink 
Last Aid, training courses about end of life care (eg Highland Hospice run one – international movement)

Obit, Victoria Chang (poetry)
Dying to Eat, Candi K Cann (food)
Focal Point, Jenny Qi (poetry)
The Midnight Soup, Leo Burtin (play text)
A Certain Kind of Death (2011 – Documentary)
Chinese American Death Rituals, Cy Wah (non-fiction)

microbursts is, for me, a vital and important text.
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Notes Made While Falling, Jenn Ashworth
Everyman, Phillip Roth
On Being Ill, Virginia Woolf
Gilead, Marilyene Robinson
Illness, Havel Carel
Words in Pain, Olga Jacoby
Some of us Just Fall, Polly Atkin

Life, Death, Whatever – Anna Lyons
Some of the episodes of home-cleaning tv series Sort Your Life Out on BBC iplayer that explore “stuff” attachment post-bereavement
The Artist’s Way, no specifically (or at all) subject-related, but a reminder to explore your artistic or creative life, a form of recovery
Swedish Art of Death Cleaning, Margonata Magnusson

The Day that Went Missing, Richard Beard (memory and repression surrounding death)
If You Sit Very Still, Marian Partington 
Sad Book, Michael Rosen
In the Dark Wood: What Dante Taught me about grief, healing and the mysteries of love, Joseph Luzzi
Stranger, Baby, Emily Berry
Grief and Loss: Living with the Presence of Absence, Davina Kirkpatrick (PhD, University of the West of England, Bristol)
The Narrow Road to the Interior (poems), Kimko Hahn
Hōjōko and Essays on Idleness, Chomei

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Mourning Diary, Roland Barthes
Judith Butler’s book on collective grief (I can’t remember the title!)

Living our Dying (ed Larry Butler and Sheila Templeton
Mayflies, Andrew O’Hagan
Elegies, Douglas Dunn
The Wreck of the Fathership, WN Herbert

Climate Change (Grief) – Out of Time
The Forest School of the Tale The Overstory
The Dark Mountain Project
All My Wild Mothers, Victoria Bennet
Season Disturbances, Keenen Mcarty Woolfe (check name!)
Bioluminscence Biology, Fiona Benson

Moominvalley in November, Tove Jansen
Pure Colour, Sheila Heti

Mary Oliver – for grounded beauty about all things in life and death
Anne Carson – to be shaken up about form and subject. Her Plainwater is a text to return to again and again.
Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward (and an article she wrote about her husband’s death in Jan 2020)
The Undying, Anne Boyer
The Blue Clerk, Dionne Brand

Diaries of a Dying May, William Souter
I got a lot from a book, The Precipice’ (?? ___oxford photographer, writes around Anthropocene)
Stories and Sketches of Robert Cunninghame Graham – seem to tie in somehow
Grief is a Thing with Feathers, Max Porter
Crying in K-Mart, Michelle Zauner
Elegies, Douglas Dunn
‘You will behave weirdly’ [article] Joel Golby

Brute, Emily Skaja (for its non-linear approach)
Matthew & the Atlas (music, often on loss)
Some of Us Just Fall, Polly Atkin
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald

Intimate Death, Marie de Hennezel
In Love, Amy Bloom
Living with Dying

I cannot think of specific works but I would recommend reading traditional texts of your culture (or re-reading) stories, liturgical texts, laments and dirges.
The eleventh chapter of Homer’s Odyssey
Nick Cave’s album, Skeleton Tree
Any classical or ancient narrative of descent to the underworld
Euripides, Alcestis 

Books about these themes but also more generally memoirs and stories of people’s lives eg. Amy Liptrot, The Outrun, for overcoming difficult circumstances in life
Books on my bookshelf – can’t remember offhand but I baseically embarked on a literature review in the immediate aftermath of loss. So I would recommend casting a wide net. Some worked better, some less so, for me personally.
We All Know How this Ends
Finding Meaning, Kesler
The Worlds I fell out of, Melanie Reid