Hello. I’m Amelia, and for the next year I’m the writer-in-residence at walk • listen • create.
This was one of the prizes for winning the prose category in WLC’s Write About Walking competition, themed on “Walking A/Way” (you can read or listen to my piece here and check out my fellow in-residence writer, Shani Cadwallender, the new poet-in-residence.
When I told friends, they were impressed but asked: “How can you be in residence at a website?” There’s no desk to sit behind, no new coffee machine to understand.
Part of the experience of a residency is the new environment. The surroundings, the culture, the colleagues and so on. The flow between those and the writer, and back again. So I’ll be exploring the online world of creative walking. How does WLC connect people? How does it inspire them? How does it inspire me? And how can I contribute?
I have spent a lot of the past two years online. I’ve just completed an MA at Bath Spa university – without ever setting foot there, aside from unexpectedly walking through the leafy grounds while on a weekend ramble with friends. The nature and travel writing course I did is conducted online, aside from four residentials during the two years. Every couple of weeks, the students logged on for a seminar or workshop, and logged off again after 90 minutes or so. We would meet online for chats, getting to know the shelves behind each other’s heads or who had inquisitive cats. This remote learning and socialising worked very well around busy lives – I couldn’t have fitted an in-person MA around my day job (freelance editing) and domestic life (three young children, two less demanding cats).
And when I’m not in the internet, I’m on the outskirts of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, a town mostly known for its festivals. I moved back here a couple of years ago after 25 years in London and have been re-exploring its more interesting corners.
walk · listen · create has been a real inspiration for me in terms of the many writers’ salons and its generous celebration of creativity. My challenge to myself over this coming year is to explore that middle word, too: “Listen”, and to reimagine walking as an artistic practice, not just an A-to-B. This could be playful, melancholic or celebratory – the thing is to set off, and see what happens.
