Hannah Moore is a storyteller, social dance leader and restorative justice practitioner. I met her at a community event in my home town of Nailsworth and I was impressed by the intensity and commitment with which she told. I had to find out what brought her to do what she does.

Here is the conversation we had a few weeks afterwards about the insides of her craft, rediscovering empathy when we have lost it and the image as the crossing point of recognition between personal experience and what we are able to share. She tells two stories during the conversation, one about a monkey getting into trouble, and one about two soldiers from opposing armies cooperating to get each other out of it. 

You can find out where Hannah is telling and what she’s making at hannahmoore.co.uk. If you live in the Cotswolds, get on her mailing list and get out to see her tell!

I first met Najiba Mracadeh in January 2021. In the three years since I have spent hours writing alongside her on the intuitive writing craft seminar and other courses that she's taken with me and we have worked together to hammer her first two books in English on the anvil of her intention. 

In this conversation we talk about her first book, No Rush which was published in October 2021. It is a memoir that catches her life in the lives of those she has encountered in a kaleidoscopic net of prose and poetry. In this conversation she speaks about how she came to write and publish it.

Heartfelt thanks to Melissa Morris, whose music accompanies Najiba's readings of her work.

Melissa Morris is a professional pianist, teacher, and an interdisciplinary artist. In recent years she has come out as a songwriter, and I wanted to talk to her about the path she’s walked to release her first single, half light. 

As one can do with a dear friend we sat in her living room and talked for 2 ½ hours. What she told me about the uneasy relationship between playing classical music and improvisation, her search for the authority to write, and her actual process of writing words and music was eye-opening, The openness in detail with which she describes it all makes this episode very easy to learn from and put into practice. 

Find the song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/6qLLJGYADTS1h67axaPqgT?si=U-GVrzKDSXqtLethuowOYA

Find Melissa:

instagram.com/melissamorrismusic

Writing is many things to many people. For me, it is a contact dance with time.