Gathering a community of elephants, chickens, and iguanas

At the incredible Alnwick Story Fest!

I am fresh back from Alnwick Story Fest, and almost feel re-born, such was the power of this year’s festival. I’m looking at things with new, tired eyes, sensing the exhaustion yet calm in my body and have reached a new level of exhilaration and contentment in equal measures.

But first let me go back to the beginning;

This was the 3^rd year of the festival, and I first came along last year with my friends Clair, Annabel, and Allyson. We had a brilliant time visiting the author sessions and for me, spending more time with Allyson, who I’d only met in real life a handful of times, was the icing on the cake.

Allyson on the left, Clair on the right, on a beautiful day at the Fest last year, in front of the famous Alnwick Gardens water fountain.

She lived near Beverley, East Yorkshire, and we’d met online through Life After Cancer CIC. She thoroughly enjoyed last year’s festival as we went into inspiring author sessions, met my lovely friend and co-founder of the festival Suzy, visited Alnwick Gardens, had dinner, coffees, laughed and chatted non-stop.

This year Allyson wasn’t here in person, although I firmly believe she was there in spirit.

In just a few short months after the festival her health deteriorated and after more months of many types of treatment for the cancer that had returned, she passed away in October last year.

Allyson was the kindest, most positive, engaging person I knew with a complete lust for life and fearless spirit, despite all she went through. You can read more about her and all that she achieved in her incredible life here.

By November last year I’d had an idea which crystallised further following support from Suzy Walker and the Alnwick Story Fest and then fully formed with a flurry of activity in December - a way to celebrate her life, and honour her legacy as a fearless writer.

During her time in hospital, where she was having daily, tough and stressful treatment, she had taken to Substack to write, to process and keep her active mind busy writing almost 60 daily posts.

And so, we launched the Allyson Kent Fearless Writer award, supported by Alnwick Story Fest in January. We received some truly inspiring and deeply moving entries but there was one unanimous winner, chosen by Suzy, author Robin de Rosario and myself, and this weekend we announced the winner – Elaine Gregersen. You can find her winning story here and the runner up and all the other shortlisted people too.

One of which was fellow Heart Leaper and Author Sue Reed below!

We announced the result in the large room overlooking Alnwick Gardens, after my own session – ‘Finding creativity in nature’ which I delivered to 50 people.

Just a year earlier, Allyson had been sat there in that room with me.

I was nervous in the run up to that, and knowing I was speaking about Allyson and the award at the end, plus her husband Garry was also in the room, I just wanted to make her, and him proud and do it well.

So I embraced my inner Allyson whose mantras were – Feel the fear and do it anyway, and also ‘Yes I Can’ (Allyson’s charity name) and delivered that session far better than I ever anticipated.

It was literally like she was there, shoulder to shoulder with me in that room.

In my session I started with a warm-up exercise about discovering your spirit animal – asking which animal do you identify with, what characteristics relate to you as a person?

It was such a fun exercise to do, and I was met with a parade of brilliant animals: elephants, chickens, iguanas, pandas, zebras, cats, hamsters, rabbits, owls, polar bears, and lapwings, to name just a few - we had our very own Noah’s Ark in that room!

It created a buzz and energy that lasted the entire session as they also got stuck into writing their ‘tree story,’ an acrostic poem linked to a body of water they felt a connection with, and ended with using animal proverbs to set intentions.

And then I braved it and read an excerpt from my own book – Creative by Nature. I am not always the best at reading out my own work, and towards the end I felt pretty emotional, but I read it word perfect, no stumbling, no talking too fast, I was totally shocked at how well I’d delivered it – most definitely fuelled by not only Allyson’s spirit, but also the love and support in the room.

I then went on to speak about Allyson, and the award and just about held it together before handing over to my fellow judges, Suzy, and Robin to speak about the winners of the competition!

What followed was the complete high of adrenaline rush – I’d done it, and together Suzy, Robin and I had done Allyson and her family proud, thank goodness!

The rest of that morning was a bit of a blur as I had a meeting straight after and then went to various author sessions. In the afternoon though I got to see my friend,

Emma Simpson

speak about her just launched book – Breaking Waves.

I’ve known Emma for a while now, and was so proud to see her up there on stage being interviewed by Suzy about her book. It was a privilege to learn more about what had inspired her story, and the themes of women coming together as a community to be healed by the cold water through all kinds of loss and life experiences.

But Emma also injects her humour into the story, and so this book has you both choking up and laughing out loud in places – as I did on the train home to a few curious stares!

Emma is so inspiring to the rest of us writers in the Heart Leap group (Suzy’s Substack membership), I couldn’t help but beam seeing the long line of people buying her book and her signing the copies – an author’s dream!

Later, we met with the winner of the competition, Elaine and author Alexander Macall Smith (Sandy) no less for dinner which was so lovely to have some time to reflect on the day, speak to Elaine more (upon hearing more of her story, her winning was so well deserved) and hear some of Sandy’s amusing stories – such a lovely man.

That evening I went to see Lucy Adlington talk about her best-selling book – The Dressmakers of Auschwitz. Lucy delivered a masterclass in presenting, spending 90 minutes talking about the courageous women who worked in the dressmaking salon in the toughest war camp of Auschwitz. Again what struck me was the ability to draw out the positives in this harrowing story, how the women still managed to have fun in dire circumstances, and create plans to recruit more women with different sewing skills and plot their ultimate escape.

Lucy had us in the palm of her hands as she walked us through these women’s lives getting us to the heart of their personalities and strength of character. I felt like we collectively held our breath for the whole of the session until we knew the outcome of these women’s lives, encapsulated in a beaming picture of the elderly sisters who survived.

Wow, that is the power of storytelling right there, and a firm lesson in why we need to release all kinds of stories into the world.

It had been a long day surfing a wave of emotions, and so we all headed back to our apartment and opened a bottle of fizz to celebrate what had been an incredible day, downloading our excitement and the lessons we’d taken from each session. I must give a shout out too to Colyn the Super Host of Baekere House Apartments! A beautiful place to stay above The Farm Bakery in the market square!

My friends with Adele Parks, whom I met the week before ironically in Holmfirth!

The next morning I went along to my fellow judge Robin de Rosario’s session, all about being a neuro-diverse author. Being diagnosed with ADHD, finally, last Summer, I was keen to pick up some strategies for my easily distracted brain to help with the writing of my book.

Robin delivered a great session and ultimately gave us permission (why do we always need it?) to write however we want to write, and most importantly in a way that works with our neurodiverse brains not against them!

I especially loved the analogy that neuro typical writers tend to be ‘channel swimmers,’ steady, consistent, heading in a straight line with endurance and regulated energy.

Neurodiverse brains however tend to be surfers, rushing in and riding the waves whilst we can, then getting a bit distracted and bobbing about in the waves waiting for the next burst of energy. This means that we find it difficult to work in a standard, consistent manner, and so need to work with this, and instead tackle different elements of writing a book such as research, marketing, interviews, and networking to keep our brains motivated and interested.

I felt myself breathe a huge sigh of relief as this is exactly how I operate, and finally I no longer needed to feel guilty about it! I’d always wanted to be a cool surfer when I was at Uni in Plymouth, maybe this was my way of doing it!

My final session that day was with Oliver Burkeman, having read his book – Four Thousand Weeks, I was looking forward to this closing event of the festival. Suzy interviewed him which was great as they were friends from her Psychologies magazine days and so the banter was fun to witness too.

It was one of those conversations that I would have loved to go on for longer, I felt there was so much more to discover in this wise man’s mind!

But the biggest takeaway for me, and my friend Clair who was also watching was this – ‘What if you just accepted that you weren’t ever going to sort your life out, and therefore just stop waiting for that and get on with living it, or doing what you want to do’.

What a delightful slap in the face of an idea that was!

I think we all gasped at that point. My mind drifted to the dressing room we have at home, which stays tidy for approximately one day a week when I tidy it on a Sunday whist watching ‘Love your weekend’ with Alan Titchmarsh!

The rest of the week is a tirade of strewn clothes as I decide what to wear, washing baskets with clean clothes in and ones that need to be washed, and the inevitable basket of mis-matched underwear and socks – I literally spend half my life looking for matching socks and it drives me crazy.

At best I achieve matching socks about twice a week – I went to a big networking event yesterday and they had us doing a collective chair yoga session, with our shoes off, and I almost triumphantly declared that Yes I can do that, because I have matching, albeit my daughter’s, socks on today!

Me being not the perfect home maker takes A LOT of space in my brain, every, single, week. What if I just accepted that I was not going to ever sort out that aspect of my life?

It feels so radical to embrace that, but how bloody freeing if we could?

Definitely something to work on, I think.

I did have one question about this theory though, I wondered how it may affect motivation and drive – a central ADHD trait of mine.

Would I just end up in a pile of squalor, suffocation and eventually - death by odd socks mountain?

I may email him and ask him or Suzy, can you invite him back next year please?!

And so following this revelation, it was time for the festival to end, an after-party ensued, and I got to chat to some of the people who had been at my session. I was interested to learn how some of the exercises I’d set them in relation to trees and bodies of water had made them feel pretty emotional.

I always love hearing these stories and how nature can unlock something, not only creatively but our connection to nature is so powerful and often helps us to release things we didn’t know we were carrying.

That evening I headed to the pub with Emma, her husband, friends Heather and Rae and new Heart Leap member Eva. We had a lovely evening getting to know each other more and celebrating the launch of Emma’s book, it was the perfect way to end the festival, before I headed back to the apartment for a big mug of tea and honey on toast – delicious!

In the morning I packed up and then headed to Barter Books, this time not needing to buy any books after taking many home from the festival! Eva and I swapped more stories as I tucked into a big brunch before my train journey home.

The lovely Tracey from the ASF ops team dropped me at the station and I soon settled in my seat and delved back into Emma’s book, mostly fully absorbed, apart from when one woman shouted loudly to her friend on her phone about her snake of a boyfriend!

Always great for character observation train journeys!

The Alnwick Story Fest weekend has been a whirlwind of emotions from nerves to exhilaration, curiosity to peace, connection and solidarity in our quest to serve up our stories.

I feel like Alnwick has brought me back to my place as a writer with a new enthusiasm to get the job done in terms of finishing the book. Reading out the excerpt in my session felt so good, and so many people came up to me saying they loved it and when was my book out?

Cue a giant kick up the ass!

It’s given me a new optimism to ask What If, as Summit Paul-Choudhury, optimist and Author of The Bright Side suggested on the first night of the fest. So what if I could actually get this book published?

It suddenly feels more possible than ever before, and I have the magic of Alnwick, the beautiful people who I got to know more, Suzy and the ASF Team, my friends’ unwavering support and Allyson’s eternal guiding spirit to thank for that.

As for Allyson’s spirit animal, I believe she is everything in nature all around me; the feather that arrived at my feet when she passed, the geese fly-by at her funeral, the robins that follow me on my daily walks, the rare flash of electric blue of a kingfisher speeding down the river, my hopeful Monday heron who gives me a boost when I need it, and the whisper of the trees on a breeze.

I know she is here, with me on this journey, cheering me on as she always did, and I won’t let her down.

Alnwick Story Fest is a special melting pot of stories, connection, warmth, support and healing that I didn’t know I needed.

I was meant to get back in that room, feel the fear and do it anyway, just as Allyson liked it.

And now my heart is full, my optimism high, and I’m riding that wave like a surfing dude!

See you next year Alnwick, you’ve been a blast.

With love and light,

Juliet x