Inspire Culture (00:09.199)
You're listening to the I Am A Writer podcast from Inspire Culture, Learning and Libraries. This podcast is hosted by Annie Warren, one of the seven writers commissioned to work on the project. During the series, Annie talks to a writer or writers from the project and also members of the Inspire team in a bid to share valuable insights and learning gained from the project. 

Hi, and welcome to episode one of the I Am A Writer podcast. I'm your host, Annie Warren, and today I'll be talking to Anna Osteel, a fellow writer on the project. Anna Osteel is the bestselling author of seven novels, a playwright and an emerging screenwriter. She's a BBC Writers Room and New Perspectives Associate alumnus and is currently writing her eighth novel. For I Am a Writer, as well as delivering workshops for adults and children in libraries, Anna was commissioned to work with the Harworth and Bircotes Tenants and Residents Association, a voluntary community group that works all year round for the benefit of residents to co-create new pieces of writing. Hello, Anna. Hello. It's great to have you here in the I Am A Writer studio. It's very, very good to be here. So I thought we'd kick off by talking a bit about the CPD or Continuing Professional Development Programme that was delivered by Writing East Midlands. So can you tell us a bit about what the CPD programme involved and whether getting to take part in something like that was a novel experience for you as a commissioned writer? 

Yeah, it was really good. The thing about projects like this is that you go into it and it doesn't matter how much experience you have as a writer. Number one, there's always opportunities to learn more stuff anyway. But number two, I hadn't delivered workshops in community settings. The kind of workshops I had historically delivered were in, you know, lovely retreats in very nice hotels that people with a bit of cash have got to be able to book and go on or one-off sessions in places where people had opted in, they chose them to go and do the workshops. So doing workshops in this kind of environment was still quite new to me. But also I think there's something around developing your confidence in that environment and the more that you do of those and the more opportunities you get to talk about delivering workshops and what your practice might look like in that environment, the better. But also actually probably more so than anything, being in a room with all the other writers that were on the program for me was really, really useful because you got to swap stories. You managed to maybe connect with people and remove some of those feelings of imposter syndrome that I think everybody gets. Like, certainly I get anyway. And being in a room where I wasn't the only one who was kind of nervous and excited about delivering the workshops, it was great. And then there was also the specific kind of sessions that we had. So delivering into a community environment where I didn't know at that point who I was going to be working with. Having sessions that were specifically tailored to working with older people or to working with people with dementia or to working with people with neurodivergence.

It just really expanded all of my kind of knowledge around that and gave me some ideas on what I could do. I loved it. I loved it too. I loved being involved with the, with the CPD because for me, I haven't been involved as a writer in a program of this type before. But as I understand it, also as a freelancer, it's really, it's not normal to be us to be involved with kind of CPD as a freelancer, especially as like a creative writer and to be paid for as well. Yeah, absolutely. And so important, you know, if you want to have a real impact, if you want the projects that you're doing, that Inspire are doing to have to be sustainable and to have a kind of legacy, then investing time and energy and yeah, money into our time as writers to be able to develop our practice, but then into the program and making sure that the work that is being delivered on the library's behalf is of quality. Because irrelevant how much experience you might have as a writer, delivering a workshop is a completely different thing. You have to remove self from the process, which when you're a writer, invariably, it's coming through you. You are writing whether it's fiction, nonfiction, whatever it is, it's your interpretation of that story or that idea.

And in a workshop environment, you're having to create something that is empowering or nurturing for the people, for the participants. So you have to remove yourself from that. And that's a skill. That's a technique. And so I think it's really important to invest time in CPD for people delivering workshops of that nature. But also, I just really appreciated the fact that our time was respected and valued. You know, in the current climate, that's massively important. We have expertise in certain areas, but we can't all know all things. And how do you get that knowledge without being supported to learn it? So, yeah, I totally agree because I feel like, you know, often if you're not a freelancer, you might get training on the job.

But as a freelancer, not only, know, usually you have to pay for courses and that's also like a double payment because then also you're not getting paid for your time that could be used on a paid project. So it's like, it's very hard to develop as a freelancer in that way. Absolutely. I really liked what you said as well about taking self out of it because I feel like as a writer, your work does naturally contain so much of yourself. And so when you're doing a creative workshop for other people, for other writers, it's such a different skill to take yourself away from it, but also encourage people to put themselves into it in the same way. So yeah, I totally agree with you and I feel like I loved the CPD program, getting to be part of it myself as well. Did you find it was helpful specifically with the workshops that you put on for the Tenants and Residents Association? did, yeah, I did. Although I think my group was unique in that it was a big group.

So yeah, tell us about your group. mean, I on any one point, at any one point, I could have 40, 50, 60 people in a room. So you go in a workshop environment, not ordinarily, and you've got eight, 10, 12 maybe 15 people in a workshop environment for a couple of hours. And you can be quite focused and you can take people through a really structured session and you can create an environment where they can embrace whatever story is that they're wanting to tell. But that was not the case with the group that I worked with. It was a community group that meet regularly. They were going there for coffee or tea or whatever, and they were going to catch up with their friends. And it's a really important part of

their social life and their connectivity. at that time of year as well, this is going back to February 2024. So, you know, cold weather and February, March time, you know, a really important time for people actually to get out of the house and go and see people. So I couldn't go into that room and deliver a big workshop to 40, 50, 60 people because that's not their priority.

They all were engaged in as much as they all had stories they wanted to tell. But it was about finding a way to deliver that uniquely for them, essentially. And so the CPD gave me the skills to be able to go in and communicate with different people. But it also gave me a confidence that meant that I could adapt my approach to what was required in the room at that time with that group.

So yeah, valuable, but for entirely different reasons than perhaps it might have been for you with your experience. Yeah, I think that's another thing that comes along with CPD as well is that you obviously gain the skills that you're looking at in that specific session. But for me as well, it's really the confidence. And for me that you mentioned it before as well, but it really comes from the other writers in the room as well and getting to share stories with them and getting to feel like I'm...

I'm not an imposter here and like these things have been felt before. Because I don't know about you, but I really felt like a sense of camaraderie and getting to be on a team with people, which was just lovely. absolutely. And you know, and the fact that either none of us were imposters or we all were. Exactly. I think it's that it's that human connection, isn't it? For us as much as anybody else if you're in an environment where you're allowed to identify, you know, your vulnerabilities or your nervousness or whatever, then you build that connection and that's where knowledge grows and confidence grows. And it was an incredibly generous group of writers as well. And I think as a result of that, that really helped those relationship building, which again, just adds to that confidence. 

Yeah, absolutelysince we're talking about confidence as well. I shadowed you on one of your workshops and I haven't asked you about this before, but what was that like for you? Had you been shadowed before? No, it's terrifying. I'm terrifying person. I mean, you're one of the least terrifying people I've met, You're utterly lovely. But there's an element of responsibility that you suddenly take in that environment, isn't there? So, you know, you want to do a good job for the people that are in the room, for the people that have opted to come and use their valuable time with you to do that. But also you want to make sure that you do a good job for the person who's shadowing you so that they can take something, anything, from their valuable time that they're investing. and I guess...

So yeah, makes you, it made me feel a bit nervous and a bit vulnerable, but also it meant that I had to be reflective in a way that I might not otherwise have been. Because by that point also, I'd been delivering quite a few workshops. And so you get into a bit of a groove and you begin to gain a bit of confidence. And so I keep saying confidence, don't we? We talk about that a lot. It's obviously quite a key thing, isn't it? But so I think being in a position where I had to be a bit more reflective just meant that you check yourself and I don't think that's a bad thing. Yeah. Well, I found it super useful because it was really great for me to kind of come along like almost as a punter and get to join in with the workshop and see the way that you, what I think I really learned from it was the way that you were kind of involving everybody up to their comfort level, which was really interesting. Like that's what I really took into my workshops from you was making sure that everybody was as involved as they wanted to be and were comfortable being and not beyond that because then there are also sometimes people that you need to kind of not coax out of their shell almost, but who need bit of encouragement to share. there are some people who don't need encouragement to share and it's balancing that within a group. 

So I'm really interested to know in terms of kind of the balance of a group and getting everyone to encouraging everyone to speak up. How did you find that with the bigger group like the Tenants and Residents Association? I think in any workshop, irrespective of size, you have to take a moment to try and gauge where people are at. So it's not a speedy process. It's about assessing the room. It's about looking at body language. It's about just watching and observing for a moment and just really getting a bit of an understanding of who are, what's the dynamic in the room? Who are the people who've got all of the things to say? Who are the people that might want something to say, but don't know if they're allowed or if they can or if they should? And who are the ones who actually just do not want to speak? And then even with those people, do they not want to speak because they don't have anything they want to say? Do they not want to speak because they're nervous? You know, what's the reason? It's complex. And quite often you have to make quite quick decisions in those, but I think you end up having to trust your instinct and then gauge a response. So in the workshop that you were in, for example, I remember there was one particular person who did not particularly want to engage hugely. There was another person who had all of the things to say, like really, really wanted to engage. And there was another person who had things they wanted to say, but they needed the environment and the space to be able to speak up. And so you've really got to really quickly be able to work out how you balance everybody's needs in a room so that everybody gets the space and time to be able to say what they need to say. 

So in Harworth and Bircotes, when I arrived, I remember just sort of for a moment pausing and just watching the room and just sort of trying to see who were the chatty people and who were the quiet people and who would engage with me, who might give me eye contact, who would be actively trying to avoid eye contact with me. And actually, interestingly, the first two people at Harworth and Bircotes that I went up to speak to did not want to speak to me. And it was a flat no. wasn't even, sometimes people say, a no is a possible yes kind of thing in certain situations. It was a flat no. There was absolutely no way was I going to get them to talk. And you've just got to respect that and move on. And it's hard because then your confidence then again is like, God, what am I doing? Am I in the right place at the right time sort of thing? But you just have to accept it, move on, and then look for the really open people so that you can get yourself back in the swing of it. And I think when other people saw me talking to their friends, they began to then have something that they might want to say themselves. And so it became much easier to strike up conversations. But you know, the reality was they were there to chat to each other and to catch up with each other. So I had to make sure that, you know, when I was going in, that I was getting there at the right time and I was speaking to them.

to them in the right moment so that I wasn't interrupting also what their agenda was for the day or for the session. yeah, it was a lot of watching body language and a lot of intuition and a lot of just sort of assessing the room. But I think that happens irrespective of the group size. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and it's really interesting what you said about almost like bouncing off.

Those like chattier, more open people and using them as a way in to make other people feel more open to it, potentially more comfortable if they want to. It's actually quite useful in that way to have lots of people at lots of different stages and to know to meet them where they're at. It's really interesting. think also I have a, you know, as writers, we all have a different approach to how we deliver a workshop and to the content that we deliver. I think by nature of the kind of writer that I am, I invariably go in and I want people to write from the heart and soul, which requires a level of vulnerability from people that people aren't always in a space to be able to give. And I have to be really careful and really self-aware in that moment that I don't open anyone up to anything that they're not ready to process or to deal with.

So I'll start about, you know, some of my exercises that I start with are about trying to get people to open up, but it has to be done really carefully. So how do you sort of prepare them for that? Or what are some of the strategies that you use when people are potentially being open and vulnerable? Like are there things that you say to the group to kind of set them up for it? I mean, I suppose it's about...

building an environment of trust really, really early on and being prepared to be vulnerable myself early on so that people can see that I'm human and that they can connect with me so that there is an element of safety that is then created and felt. And you will always get those people who are not prepared to embrace that for all kinds of entirely legitimate reasons.

But out of all of the workshops I did, at Harworth and Bircotes and out in the community at the libraries, I think generally speaking, people were prepared to dig deep because that's where the beauty comes as a writer when you're really being open and being prepared to tell the story that you want to tell as opposed to the story you think you should tell. That's where the joy comes and that's where the success potential comes as well. It's more satisfying for a writer to feel like they've connected with the words on the page. And so I think creating an environment, whether they're writing it or whether like at Harworth & Burkett, where we ended up audio recording rather than writing, creating an environment where they can be authentic, you know, is really important. Yeah, one thing that I remember that you did from shadowing you was that you when people were engaging with the exercises that you set, I remember you saying, like, there will be an opportunity to share if you want, but just so you know, you will not be required to share anything. And I took that into my workshops as well, because I think telling people that actually allows them to be really vulnerable and honest and then decide later. So you're not, so they don't have it in their head that, okay, this is something that I need to perform. Like it's for them. like, you know. The project's called I Am A Writer. I think that's what writing is about. So that was really useful for me to see you do things like that. was really great. It's something I took forward into my practice too. That's great. No, you're welcome. I think that's really good. I mean, have to say that that came out completely initially selfishly because I don't like sharing my work when I'm in one of those environments. It's very rare that I will want to share what I've written because A, because I'm not convinced it'd be any good and be quite often it's quite personal. Which when I'm ready to share that, I'll share with anybody. You know, I am an open book as anyone who's spent two and a half seconds with me will know.

But it has to be, you know, like with any of us, if you're going to be vulnerable, you've got to do it on your own terms. And so, and more often than not, people will share. It's, you know, there are always going to be people who don't want to for all kinds of, again, legitimate reasons, but more often than not, people will. But I think it is really useful to just not feel the pressure of having to. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I really liked what you said about people you know, coming to it on your own terms and like people being able to take ownership of it because again, like the project's called I am a writer and I think that there's so many creative and personal decisions that come along with being a writer. So that is part of it is deciding when and how and what to share as well. So yeah, definitely. I was really interested actually, you mentioned that you did audio recordings with the Tenants and Residents Association. Can you talk a bit about that and how that came about and how kind of audio relates to writing and being a writer? Yeah, I think the thing is about, I Am A Writer is about accessibility, it's about creating an accessible route to writing the story you want to write. And the reality is that we don't all want to put pen to paper or get out the laptops or whatever. We don't all have the opportunity to do that. It's not for everybody.

You you can find that there are some people who if you put a pen and paper in front of them, they would absolutely be terrified of a blank page. But the minute you start to talk to them, they are so incredibly articulate and they have such fascinating stories to tell. In my case, I was working with people who were sharing stories about their life and living in the village or living before it became a town, living in the town, know, really sharing really interesting stuff that if I'd have said to them, write that down, you trip up. You begin to try and work out how to write it in a way that's engaging or you begin to try and shape it into something that it doesn't need to be yet. And suddenly that kind of raw storytelling is lost because it becomes...

Even on the page, becomes performative. And actually, it was interesting because there were a couple of people who, when I first started talking to them, it was also performative. It was sit up straight. was tell, it was, you know, telephone voice. It was tell the story in a really professional manner. And it took, you know, time to just keep chatting and keep chatting and keep chipping away until eventually people would just relax and they would just talk to me. And then the stories became really interesting. And I remember talking to one lady, there was a lady called Iris, and she'd, I'd gone and done a bit of a recce the week before or two weeks before, and she'd sort of told me about how she'd learned to swim in the Scrooby River. you know, and I thought, great, this is lovely. You know, I'm a cold water swimmer, so I was all over that one. Brilliant. We'll go, I'll talk to Iris about that. So she came back two weeks later and I sat her down and I...

I record on the thing and obviously terrified whether it was going to record or not. It did, gratefully. So I pressed record and I was like, so Irish, tell me about learning to swim. And I really wanted, in the way that you would on the page, how did the water make you feel? What do you remember about the weather? How did you feel? What colors could you experience? I was trying to ask questions that would shape it so that it would be prose, but recorded. And really quickly, I think from that first conversation, I realized I couldn't do that. Like I wasn't going to get what I needed on the page in that format. I just had to let that conversation run freely. But also secondly, the story about learning to swim in the river was not the story Iris wanted to tell me. And thank goodness that she didn't because the story she did go on to tell me was way more interesting and was one of my favorites which was about the night that she lost an earring and met her husband. it's like giving people the space and the time and using audio with removing some of those traditional methods of writing a story down, freed people up in a way that maybe they wouldn't have been so had we had a traditional setting for it. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I've really discovered and really loved about the project. Obviously, it's called I'm a writer and it's about encouraging people who historically have had more difficulty accessing the arts and seeing themselves as a writer. Yeah. Kind of helping those people see that they are a writer. And for me, that's really twofold because obviously we mentioned a little bit, we talked a bit about imposter syndrome and confidence in ourselves as writers and ourselves as freelancers. So I think there's definitely one level in which the project helped me to see myself as a writer much more. But I really love what you're saying about, you know, people are storytellers and people don't realize that what we naturally do as people when you're chatting to your mate is storytelling and is writing or can be writing if you want it to be. Yeah. I mean, all of those stories that I captured on audio, I then went away and edited them down into memoirs. So little kind of, mean, I described them as hundred word memoirs. Some of them were more, some of them were less, but basically it was a little snapshot into that person's life.

Inspire Culture (24:53.511)
And actually collectively what that gives us also is then a memoir of the town. It gives a really interesting insight into growing up and living and being in that environment. And everybody's stories were so different. There was also the story from a gentleman called Trevor who really casually dropped in the fact that he grew up living and working with his siblings without realizing they were his siblings until he was in his twenties. For all kinds of entirely practical reasons around, you know, when he was born, there was not enough money to go around for all of the kids in the family. And so somebody else wanted a child and couldn't have one. So they raised him and he would go down to the river fishing with all the other kids. And one of the dads would look after all the kids and just keep an eye on him. And he didn't realize that, you know, that was his dad.

that was looking after these stories without giving that opportunity in a different way to be able to tell it. How do you hear these things? And they're really beautiful stories about human connection and what it is to ultimately find out who you are and draw connections as to why things might have felt a bit different when he was growing up. you know, there was just some really great stories and lots of funny ones as well. Yeah. It's like people say don't they they say there's the same truth is stranger than fiction. Yeah, it really can be. Yeah, totally. Yeah I wanted to talk a little bit as well about the idea of Co-creation. Yeah, and because that was one of the artistic objectives of the project was this idea of co-creation and I wondered I know we've touched on it a little bit kind of already but sort of what did that mean to you as an artist and as a writer going into the project and did did that change over the course of delivering your workshops? Yeah, I mean, I Iris is the perfect example of that co-creation. went in because I had an agenda and I knew what I needed to get out of it and I wanted to do a good job for Inspire. I went in, you know, in that particular conversation thinking, right, this is what I'm going to get out of it. And it became really quickly obvious that I had centered myself in that person's opportunity to storytell. And so, you know, to truly co-create, you're creating an environment for other people to take the lead in that sort of a situation. You know, if you've got one person who has, for want of a better terminology, the expertise, and another person who has something they want to share, then it's about finding the way to marry those two things together.

And in this environment, that co-creation then meant literally stepping aside and just creating the tools and the environment and the safety to be able to share whatever that story was. So I think really early on, I recognized that co-creation in that room was literally just about holding space, which is a term that we use a lot you know, these days, isn't it? But, you know, I genuinely mean it. It's holding a space for other people to be able to share. That's really beautiful. I really love that. So going back to the CPD a little bit as well, going back to the training, do you feel like this, that the training that we were given, do you think that you will be able to kind of take it into your life outside of the I'm a writer project and into your work outside of that as well? Yeah, 100%. Like you say, CPD is really expensive and time consuming. And as a freelancer, just, I mean, I'm laughing because it just isn't a thing, which is a real shame because then how do we progress? Yeah. So yeah, absolutely. There are tools and skills and experiences from the whole project that I can take on into other areas of my work, both as a writer and as a workshop facilitator and working on arts projects in communities, building those sorts of relationships. There's all kinds of aspects of the specific to the CPD, but also just being a part of the project as a whole that I can then take and invest into whatever I do next, wherever I go next. So it's really valuable. I mean, I have to say I've been part of all kinds of projects and I'd say this even if they weren't in the room right now. It was a real privilege to be part of the team. It really was. And I don't say that lightly. Like I can say nice things to people and be grateful, but I genuinely feel like it was a real privilege to be a part of it. It was a really unique approach because so often these days, because of the nature of the way that arts projects are funded, really clear outcomes are required. And it's right, you know, there is, it's public investment. You have to ensure that you are protecting and investing that money wisely for the greater good. So it's a really important approach to have. However, in the last 30 years, what has been removed as a result of that is an opportunity for artists to fail, an opportunity for artists to be able to try something and it not always come out with with an answer or a product. The problem with that is that it really hampers progression because everything becomes about product. And I think that there was a real encouragement. Of course there needed to be a product of some sort by the end of it. But what we were encouraged was not to be too prescriptive about what that might be so that we could, and that's where the co-creation, that's where genuine co-creation comes in. If you go in with an agenda, you are not co-creating, you are creating something with people. It's a very different thing. So being allowed to go in without a specific outcome or without a specific agenda and to be able to see and feel and evolve something that felt right for that particular group was really, really unique and empowering to me as an artist. I don't very often refer to myself as an artist. I don't know why I did that then, but... I liked it. You are an artist. I am an artist and a writer. We're all artists and writers. It's all fine. But yeah, that was really important. that's what I think why it was such an important experience for me and such a powerful experience for me, because it's not...

Inspire Culture (32:04.943)
It's rare. would completely agree because before I came into this experience as well, co-creation was a new term for me, really. I'd never really come across it before. And I think it was in some ways it was, it was overwhelming for me because it was a different way of looking at things because I was very much like, what's the deliverable? What's the outcome? And actually once you get into it a little bit more, I found it, like you said, a much more empowering and kind of freeing way to work with people and a much more creative way to work with people actually because you can follow where they want to go and like where the conversation takes you and where the story takes you, which is a lovely way to work. And so I was wondering if there's anybody listening who might be looking to do some co-creating or who has been given the objective of co-creation, is there any kind of advice that you might give them before they get started? Yeah, I'd go back to the thing that I said from the outset, which is it's about removing yourself from the situation, from the moment. Removing the agenda and just being prepared to see what happens, which is really scary because you don't want to let anybody down and you want to make sure that something comes from it and all of those sorts of things. actually, you just have to trust that if you're open, you'll be able to identify the direction of travel that a project needs to take and that you will be able to creatively respond to whatever situation you're in, whatever conversation that you're having. yeah, removing self and trust. Trust in the process. the process. Yeah, I totally agree with you. It's about almost like relinquishing a bit of control which can be quite difficult as well, think. Like creative people and as writers, especially as writers actually, because usually you're 100 % in creative control of your piece of work. Yeah. 99%. Yeah, And you're an editor, I'm going to the editor gets involved. But yeah, I think that can be a really difficult thing. like, know, as with editing as well, it is one of those things that writers find really difficult is not being 100 % in control.

Inspire Culture (34:27.197)
I think as a writer coming into it, that was something that I had to get used to. But once you do get there, I found it a really, really, I don't want to say productive, but it was a productive way of working and just a really creative and like lovely way of working too. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, that was great. Anna, thank you so much for coming in and sharing your experiences with us today. It's been insightful and enlightening and it's just been an absolute delight to meet you and chat with you and get to work with you. So thank you so much for being here. Ditto. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it. Cheers.

Inspire Culture (35:07.889)
You've been listening to the I'm a Writer podcast from Inspire, Culture, Learning and Libraries. I'm a Writer is the first stage of our I'm a Creator programme, which is made possible with funding from Arts Council England through our status as a national portfolio organisation. To find out more about the project, our writers, the audiences who took part and the outcomes, you can visit our website at inspireculture.org.uk forward slash I'm a Writer.

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