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My PhD had changed alot since the very beginning when I had what seems like a really vague idea now about storytelling and mental health. I then became interested in how stories teach people about their culture, including emotional language and understanding. I have clarified my thesis statement to: The civilisation of emotion: does traditional storytelling or do stories have an effect on how young people identify and understand the language of emotion? So in my thesis I am going to explore Arlie Hochschild’s concept of how society uses feeling in relation to young people and traditional storytelling. I intend to use Hochschild’s ideas to form a link between Jack Zipes’ application of Elias and civilitie and Bruno Bettelheim’s discussions on the possible meaning and understanding of fairy stories. While Zipes debates the behavioural influences of fairy tale literature on civilization Bettelheim’s focus was on children’s psychological maturity (which is important to well-being ...

This month I have been arranging to go into three schools to start collecting data from focus groups. I have three student storytellers on board for three schools. And I will be conducting the research in the summer term (April – May). Paul Whitehouse (English PhD student) and I have also finalised details of our summer school programme for widening participation and are applying for funding. This will include 40 students from local schools over two days. The theme is transformations as it give the students a chance to rewrite and subvert fairy tales and put together a performance of their ideas for the final day. The two days will include storytelling, performance storytelling and writing workshops, A campus tour and hopefully a bit of shadow puppet making as well.

This month I met with Jonathan Davidson, Chief Executive for Writing West Midlands . I had no idea the range of stuff they were doing it is really great to see people investing their time in supporting creativity in the area. I was especially interested in the creative writing and arts education programme they do for children and young people. I met with Jonathan to spread the word about a summer programme I am putting together with Paul Whitehouse (English). A one to two day event for adolescents which will be on the theme of Transformations and involve storytelling performances, interactive storytelling performances, discussions about folk tales and then the students will be aided in creating their own storytelling performances. We hope to host this on Warwick University campus to encourage widening participation. Things are looking harder to get funds to support my PhD research. I am currently supporting my research with part time work. I looking for a storyteller or story...

An interdisciplinary discussion of the different way people go about doing collaborative theatre work. Talkers on the panel included Omar Elerian, Associate Director of the Bush Theatre, West London, Michael Bywater , and playwright James Wilson . Inua Ellams , who wrote 13 Fairy Negro Tales , started off the evening by performing one of his fabulous poems. The discussion was about finding form, a works shape, in order to tell stories in the theatre. As one person shared with the group, this can be a fine act, ‘Covered in honey wearing moustaches singing the blues, but it all made sense at the time.’ And surprisingly to the audience too! Sounds brilliant, wish I’d seen it. Sometimes in modern theatre the ideas that you are working with can be very fragmented especially in collaborations when people have different point of view. Theatre is an organic discourse with the audience. The work, Omar Elerian said, isn’t truly finished until the final curtain falls. Different a...

Story telling Friday was Christmas Sparkle my storytelling event for Warwick postgrads with Colin King. As we sat there will mulled wine and mince pies Colin amused us with amusing, spooky and local stories. Originally from Ireland Colin went from teacher to storyteller. He also works with schools to make subjects interesting for their students. Feedback: “The storyteller was very good and I really liked the ancient folktales about Warwickshire and Ireland. Thanks for organising the event!” “It was very enjoyable.” Webinar Also took part in a seminar via a webcam between Warwick University and Monash University in Australia. This was organised by Celia Bennett Bernstein and Josette (from Warwick), Carlos and Nicholas (from Monash). Celia is doing work on dystonia (uncontrollable and sometimes painful muscle spasms caused by incorrect signals from the brain). Please see TheDystonia Society for more information. Discussions were around Foucault’s ideas of ...

December 3 rd Warwick University Writer’s department hosted poet Michael Farrell from Australia. I liked the narrative style of his most recent stuff. Had a conversation with him at the end about the poem Juggle which I thought was called Jungle, as I heard lots of jungle imagery in it, and was carried away by my own internal narrative and his words. It was fascinating hearing him talk about his techniques as a writer (which sometimes involve chance, like throwing a dice). I was interested in poetry as a verbal language… in my experience of hearing poetry it comes to life in a way that it doesn’t on the page. However Farrell challenged this perception because his form is very visually represented on the page. I was also lucky to attend storytelling performances by MA students of Drama and Theatre Education on 5 th December at Warwick’s Avon studio.   The performed stories were The Good Daughter, Rapunzel, Persephone, Nezha, Emperor’s New Clothes and Bluebeard. I particularly l...

Poet and biography Harry Ricketts was at Warwick University on Tuesday 27th December to talk about his new book Strange Meetings . As he talked about the process of writing the book I was struck by how much fiction and nonfiction intertwine in their techniques and challenges. Writing involves thinking about perspective, and there are many angles this could take. Framing a book with real meetings and links between a select number of war poets is an intriguing idea and the book reads very well. The highpoint for me was hearing the poem Quarantine Island. A strange choice perhaps, but the following words reminded me of this strange process called a PhD. 'There will be days of sudden calm, nights when stars burn into your head. World turns strange and yet the same.' It was fascinating to have a chat with him afterwards about the process of writing as I hope to use poetry in some form in my creative piece. Folktales often have rhymes and lines of poetry within them, and I...