GROWING UP, our 2026 summer school

Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!
Mrs Darling, Peter Pan by JM Barrie.

What does it mean to be a grown up and is there a moment we are fully ‘grown’? Is it possible to recapture our childhood selves? Have they been there all along?

Over two days we’ll immerse ourselves in ideas and writing exercises designed to help us explore what ‘growing up’ means. We’ll remember what mattered to us as children and we’ll focus on the good things that come with growth. We’ll look at rites of passage and we’ll nurture the creativity that stems from the child within.

A sense of our own ‘growing up’ journey will help us understand ourselves as writers and allow us to give depth to our characters and narrators.

Every piece of writing – whether poetry, fiction, essay or memoir – has the capacity to grow from a small idea into a piece of substance; from a few inarticulate words to something capable of inspiration and impact. Just like every child.

Day One

Morning: TOY STORIES with Alison Chandler

Teddies, ragdolls, scraps of felt… Our earliest relationships are often with objects that help us move between total dependence on caregivers and independence as - or what society refers to as - ‘adults’.

But these toys and fabrics often outlive our own transitions to adulthood. Maybe they sit on a shelf in a parent’s house or under the bed in that box you’ll sort ‘one day’.

What do these objects really mean to us? And why is it hard to let them go?

In this opening session we’ll get to know each other and explore our relationships with childhood objects. We’ll seek to understand what they represent and consider how an appreciation of their role might offer insights into the people we present in our stories, memoirs and poetry.

Feel free to bring a transitional object or a photo along with you to the session, either to share with the group or as a writing companion ☺︎

Afternoon: THE HULA HOOP PRINCIPLE with Paul Lyalls

They say the first forty years of childhood are the hardest. And that becoming an adult is possibly one of the worst decisions some of us ever make. When did the definition of excitement shift from let's hitchhike around France with no money to I can't wait to try this new type of dish scrubber?!

Welcome to a Finding the Poem-style investigation/celebration of growing up, drawing on the Hula Hoop Principle (yes, we do mean the crisps...). We'll delve into growing up’s most cherished and ‘road to Damascus’ moments (discoveries, change, redefinition, touchstones) using unexpected poetic techniques. We’ll each make two poems, join in a group share (if you’re happy to), participate in general togetherness and - naturally - Hula Hoops*.

Note: while you have been reading this you have been both the most grown up you have ever been and at the same time the youngest you'll ever be… Time to Hula! Paul ♡

*Please bring your own to munch on. Sadly we are unable to subsidise.

Day Two

Morning: RITES OF PASSAGE with Sita Brahmachari

We find parking spaces and honour our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up… We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias. Maya Angelou

Rites of passage moments shape and form our life paths. Using Sita’s special patchwork storytelling method - including free writing, readings, visual prompts and building a multi-sensory palette around imagination, play, landscape, memory and character – we will explore a rite of passage moment, first through a child’s eye lens and voice. We’ll then revisit this moment as an adult who hears the call of that child ‘inside’.

We’ll look at ideas from Elif Shafak, Shaun Tan, Shakespeare (Jaques ‘Seven Ages’) Maya Angelou, Jamila Gavin, Mannon Stefan Ros, Michael Rosen and David Almond, and there will be opportunities to share patchwork pieces of work in progress – plus time to muse on stitching the next piece.

Afternoon: THE ARTIST CHILD with Nazrene Hanif

I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. Ursula K. Le Guin

For our final session, we’ll explore growing up as an ongoing relationship with the self, including the child we once were. What happens when we treat that younger voice – their dreams, fears and desires – as a source of play, experimentation and creative instinct?

Through a mix of readings, discussion and guided prompts, we’ll write across time as our younger and older selves, reclaiming the so-called childish qualities that make art possible. Looking to writers such as Tove Ditlevsen, Jamaica Kincaid, Sally Wen Mao and Ali Smith, we’ll create work that listens closely to the shifting landscape of memory and the child-adult connection.

To close, we’ll celebrate and share what you’ve been working on, and where you might take your writing next.