Orange: Kim Kelly & Melanie Ifield Writing Workshop Illness and Disability

Living with Illness or Disability, or caring for a loved one living with health challenges, can be isolating. We’re given lots of medical advice and helpful and not-so-helpful opinions on how to get through, but at the end of the day, we’re alone with our thoughts and experiences.

We’re often told of the therapeutic benefits of creativity and sharing our stories, but how do we go about accessing the creative part of ourselves? There’s also often a little voice in our heads saying, ‘Why bother?’ or ‘I don’t have anything important to say.’ But everyone has something important to say about their unique experience of life.

In this Writing Workshop, award-winning regional authors Kim Kelly and Melanie Ifield will share their stories of writing about and with illness and disability – how they broke through self-doubt and what they have gained from creative expression.

Participants will also be encouraged to experiment with how they might go about expressing themselves, and how they might give themselves permission to write their truths in the ways that suits them best, be that in life-writing, fiction or poetry – to say the things we can’t say or the things that aren’t heard within doctors’ offices or even among friends. To acknowledge our experiences and celebrate ourselves for who we are, no matter what our challenges might be.

The Writing Workshop will include refreshments and morning tea. Please advise of your dietary requirements eg. Gluten Free or Vegetarian, if required.

The Workshop will be held next door to Orange City Library at 147 Byng Street, Orange in the West Room. Please do not print out a ticket. We will check you in on arrival at the Workshop.

About the writers

Kim Kelly is author of several novels, including The Rat Catcher: A Love Story, which was longlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize, and Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room which won the Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Prize. Kim is also currently in the midst of PhD research at Macquarie University. Her lyric essay on kidney donation appears in the anthology Writing Illness and Disability: Poised on the Pointe of Pain: Nureyev’s Foot and Other Essays. She lives in Millthorpe.

Melanie Ifield is author of several novels for young people, and she holds a Master of Creative Writing from Macquarie University, for which she won the Faculty of Arts Award for Academic Excellence. Based in Leeton, in the Riverina, her work explores themes of identity and resilience, as does her essay in the anthology, Poised on the Pointe of Pain: Nureyev’s Foot and Other Essays, which focuses on her experience of chronic health challenges.

About their book

Writing Illness and Disability: Poised on the Pointe of Pain: Nureyev’s Foot and Other Essays is a collection of personal essays that brings together people living with chronic pain, illnesses and disabilities, and those caring for them.

Contributors include prize-winning established writers such as Hsu-Ming Teo (Love and Vertigo Vogel Prize), Jessica Kirkness (The House with all the Lights On) and Kim Kelly (The Rat Catcher et al historical fiction) with emerging writers to give voice to the wide range of experiences that constitute 'living with illness and disability'.

Topics covered include: Deafness; Motor Neurone Disease, and the life-long pain experienced by elite dancers. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to truly grasp the resilience, strength, and humanity behind chronic illness and disability.

For more about the book: https://peribo.com.au/product/living-with-illness-and-disability-poised-on-the-pointe-of-pain-nureyevs-foot-and-other-essays/

Also check out other Arts events in Orange, Literary Art events in Orange, Workshops in Orange.