The Past

Explore your Story

In 2019 a message was sent around a Life & Memoir writing group at the Collage Rooms in Haringey. A major local campaign group, Haringey Welcome, was looking for people interested in starting a community writing group for migrant and refugee writers. The aim was to eventually get some of the writing published. Calina and Catherine were keen and were soon introduced to Judith through Haringey Welcome. Together we set up ‘Explore Your Story’ in early 2020 with Rebecca and Hannah joining soon after. 

​

We started meeting on Zoom just as Lockdown I began in March 2020. This may explain why the group was successful straight off as we were all very focused on our weekly ‘Explore Your Story’ meetings, which gave us a creative and social lifeline out of our daily lockdown routines.

​

A year later, this book is result of the meetings and the writing we did. We have been on a fantastic creative adventure together: all from different backgrounds, fuelled by a sense of inclusion, interest and excitement about writing and about each other’s personal journeys.

​

We decided to present the writing in the same form as our meetings: 

pick a topic; do a warm-up exercise; then write! And we have printed it here just the way it came out with all the energy and enthusiasm that created it, and without worrying too much about apostrophes and schoolroom grammar.