Next Leaf Support Workshop
Saturday 19th September, 2pm – 5pm
An online poetry workshop with Susan Richardson and Elizabeth Rimmer, exploring the multi-layered connections with the plants that green our homes, gardens, parks and countryside
The Workshop
From houseplants to weeds, herbs to suburban landscapes, cultivated to wild, this poetry workshop enables a deeply rooted connection to the leafy beings in our immediate environment. We will explore new ways of writing about the dynamic lives of plants and how they impact on us, challenging the view that they merely provide a passive backdrop against which the more exciting interactions of the animal kingdom take place.
In the first part of this workshop, Susan Richardson will focus on ‘the wild indoors’ – our kinship and complex entanglements with houseplants. You will need to bring along a houseplant with which to engage during this part of the session.
Elizabeth Rimmer will focus on wild plants, and particularly on the notion of ‘weeds’. She will discuss her artistic practice of ‘walking the territory’ enabling close observation of the plants that grow there, whether in gardens, wild land or in the cracks in pavements or along walls, and how it helps build a relationship and sense of belonging to the places we call home.
Once ideas and raw material have been generated from Susan and Elizabeth’s input and prompts, there will be a period of focused writing and an opportunity to share poem drafts and receive constructive feedback.
Both beginner and more experienced poets and nature writers are welcome, as are artists, botanists, herbalists, foragers and anyone with a budding interest in plants.
Dates and Times
The first ‘Leaf Support’ workshop will run online on Saturday 19th September, 2pm – 5pm Cost £45. To book, please fill in the Google form. Payment can be made by PayPal, or directly by bank transfer, by contacting elizabeth@burnedthumb.com
A small number of subsidised places are available for the unwaged – please ask. You will receive a Zoom link and joining instructions on the day before the workshop. While this first workshop is taking place online, there are plans for in-person offerings in the future.
The Poets
Susan Richardson is a writer, performer and educator whose work explores engagement with the more-than-human world. Her fourth poetry collection, Words the Turtle Taught Me, themed around endangered marine species, was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award while her nature memoir, Where the Seals Sing, is published by HarperCollins. As well as having more than twenty-five years’ experience of facilitating creative writing workshops, she has a lifelong passion for outdoor and indoor gardening – at one time, her houseplant collection numbered more than two hundred! www.susanrichardsonwriter.co.uk
Elizabeth Rimmer is a poet, blogger and editor. She has five collections with Red Squirrel Press. Her most recent collection Comrades of Dark Night, about dislocations, hauntings, othering, transformations, healing and creativity, was published by Red Squirrel Press in May 2026. She has edited many poetry collections for Red Squirrel Press. Her work has been translated into French, Arabic and Gaelic, and one of her poems once appeared on the side of a bus. www.elizabethrimmer.com