The embodied writer: using somatic practice to challenge traditional workshop structures

This paper explores the pedagogic implementation of somatic techniques within creative workshop environments for writers. The usage of somatic and mindful exercises, which are sometimes utilized within performer training, offers significant benefits in emotional and physical regulation and opens up creative pathways. By examining two workshops for writers designed by the author and research partners, one for neurodivergent participants and another for more general groups, the article analyses how the combination of somatic exercises and writing tasks equips participants with tools to encourage productive working environments. Simultaneously, this process equips them to think through their bodies, thereby producing work which communicates their unique physical and cognitive experiences. This consideration is underscored by bell hooks’s idea of education as a transgressive act, supporting students/participants to be actively engaged in their own development, as opposed to passive learners.