SPECIAL: Leading Creative Writing Tutor & Author Julia Bell
Details
For this online talk we welcome Julia Bell. Julia is a novelist, essayist and Professor of New Writing at Birkbeck, University of London.
Julia brings a unique and inspiring understanding of creative writing and the value of writing together, even more so in the times we are living. She will give a 30-minute talk and then answer questions.
Please see below about how to join this free, online event.
Her talk is entitled:
Writing and Thinking Together
The context for her talk is:
At a moment when technology has created collective ADD (smartphones reducing attention by 39%), when adult education funding has dropped 45%, and when evening courses are disappearing, what happens when we lose the spaces where people sit together and practice thinking collectively? Julia has taught creative writing for 25 years to working adults - refugees processing war trauma, Brexit casualties navigating displacement, incels, students confronting structural racism, among many others. She argues that the writing workshop is one of the last spaces where we practice collective attention, empathy and democratic thinking in an age of algorithmic isolation.
And a note about some of Julia's published work:
Her new book, 'Between the Lines - a live-action classroom on the page' - is published by Simon & Schuster in May 2026. Her essay 'Radical Attention' is being reissued this summer with a new introduction by Grace Blakeley.
How do I join this online event?
Simply write to me, Caprice Jackson, Queer Write's convenor, on this platform and I will send you the link.
CJ