EVER FIND YOURSELF MOVED BY A STRAY LYRIC? OBSESSED WITH A SCENE FROM A FILM YOU CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT? COMING APART IN THE SUPERMARKET QUEUE? WELCOME—YOU’RE EXACTLY WHERE YOU NEED TO BE.
Leaning In is a course for anyone who wants to get closer to the hum of daily life and find stories hiding in plain sight. Through writing, discussion, and shared curiosity, we’ll explore how narrative lives not just in our imaginations, but in the books we love, the songs we cling to, the things we overhear on the bus, and the quiet dramas of everyday existence.
This is a space for noticing. For deep-diving into your own patterns and preoccupations. For letting art—yours and others’—lead you somewhere surprising.
Over fsix weeks, you’ll be guided through writing exercises, prompts and playful provocations that use existing texts, film, music, and daily life as springboards into your own creative work. Think less rigid craft, more intuitive storytelling. Less perfection, more presence. This class will be focused on the tools for telling great stories and forming connections between the mundane and profound, the political and personal, whilst gathering pockets of inspiration from the vast, sprawling hum drum of daily life around us.
Whether you're an old hand or just starting to scribble, this course invites you to lean in—to your own life, your own voice, and the world around you. Come make something from the mess. Join a group of writers with a willingness to form a small online community and be part of a soft, generous space.
All levels welcome. Especially the curious, the stuck, the burnt out and the sensitive.
-You will be sent zoom links for the course a day before the course starts.-
Feedback from previous course participants:
‘A perfect place to write with others and connect, through listening, writing and sharing as much as you want to. There was never any pressure to share and everyone who did was supported and encouraged all the way by Kate and the group.’
‘The prompts were perfectly curated and Kate guided us through ways to find new ways of looking at ourselves and the everyday. I came away from the workshop with multiple ideas and techniques I want to return to and expand and I am convinced any writer would find their notebooks bulging with ideas from the course. Finally, the final feedback session was so inspiring, hearing others work and how everyone listened and responded to each other was a magic end to the course’
‘Kate's manner and warmth in the sessions made everyone feel comfortable. There was a real mix of experiences within the world of writing, but everyone was able to learn from each other, as well as from Kate's own experience. A brilliant course, would definitely recommend.’
‘This course was the highlight to my week. Kate structured the course so beautifully allowing us to build up our experiences in trying out different ways of writing. There was never any pressure to share, but sharing and hearing other's work was incredibly enriching. Kate established such a safe atmosphere and her feedback was always really useful. Before this course, I'd hardly ever shared any of my writing and now I feel much more confident and intend to start going to open mic nights to perform’
Kate Ireland is a writer and performer from Glasgow. Her work has been featured on BBC 6, the Roundhouse, WeOutHere and Glastonbury Festival. Her one woman show Golden Time (and other behavioural management strategies) will do a full run at the Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh Fringe 2025 and last year she released her album and accompanying pamphlet Self Regulating Behaviours. This year Kate put out her self-produced electronic spoken word EP Voice Notes. Kate is the founder of Blether, a community-focused storytelling collective based in Manchester. Kate is also a trained poet-therapist as well as neuroinclusivity advocate, bringing her knowledge of creativity as a tool for wellbeing and improving mental health to schools, prisons and socially engaged contexts. Kate is the author of the substack Low Maintenance Guff. Kate’s debut poetry collection will be published with Burning Eye in Spring 2026.
Kate’s work is equally concerned with written language as spoken word, embracing conversational dialogue as a primary mode of communication, attempting to cut through the bullshit of pretence and connect deeply through our weird, tender parts.
Kate's words are designed to be listened to and experienced rather than just read. She is a self professed sensitive soul whose work examines the way we behave. Using her personal life and proliferating it out into a larger cultural lens, questions of self are at the forefront of her work.