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PRODID:-//Essex Book Festival - ECPv4.0.4//NONSGML v1.0//EN
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X-WR-CALNAME:Essex Book Festival
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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Essex Book Festival
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID="Europe/London":20260606T103000
DTEND;TZID="Europe/London":20260606T120000
DTSTAMP:20260518T133757
CREATED:20260326T090030
LAST-MODIFIED:20260327T171636
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SUMMARY:Grief Writing Workshop
DESCRIPTION:James McDermott\nGrief Writing Workshop\nSaturday 06 June 2026\, 10.30am - 12.00pm\nColchester Samaritans\, Walsingham Road Community Hall\, 34 Walsingham Road\, Colchester\, CO2 7BN\nDrawing on his new collection\, Father Myself\, James McDermott will lead a special writing workshop to help you to re-see bereavement\, grief and emotional loss. This inclusive and interactive workshop is designed for writers of all abilities – all welcome.\n\nTickets: £20 / £15 concessions (students\, under 27s and unwaged)\nBox Office: Eventbrite.co.uk\n\nPart of our Love & Loss day of events at Colchester Samaritans\n\n \nFather Myself\, James McDermott\n\n\nIn 2022\, James McDermott lost his sixty-year-old father to COVID after three weeks in intensive care. In Father Myself\, his second collection from Nine Arches Press\, McDermott explores his father’s complex illness and death; grief; growth and how as a queer boy then a bereaved son\, he had to learn to father himself.\n\nIn clear-sighted and often hard-hitting poems\, McDermott takes the reader onto the frontline of the pandemic – documenting the experience and trauma of a COVID-bereaved family with an unflinching eye. Both powerful and compassionate\, these extraordinary poems have the capacity to go beyond simply a record of events\, reaching sensitively for the human details that matter – the beat of a heart and movement of breath\, the touch of a hand\, the words we use for goodbye.\n\nPraise for Father Myself:\n'Father Myself is a bright devastation of a book\, a meditation on father-son love\, queerness\, loss\, imperfection\, and a man slowly becoming his own father. Lyrical\, haunting and exquisitely rendered.'\n- Joelle Taylor\n\n'This is emotional\, gut-punching stuff. McDermott's best work to date.'\n- Luke Wright\n \n\nBuy a copy of the book from bookshop.org.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n 
URL:http://ec2-35-176-91-154.eu-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/event/grief-writing-workshop/
LOCATION:Walsingham Road Community Hall\, 34 Walsingham Road\, Colchester\, Essex\, CO2 7BN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:For Writers,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:http://ec2-35-176-91-154.eu-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Event-images-Father-Myself-3x2-1.png
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