Founder & Director Catrin Kemp
About me
When I had my first child in 2017, words failed me.
Where once I had been articulate, curious – even funny, sometimes – I found I'd lost access to a language to describe my experience.
“And how’s Mum?” the health workers asked.
It seemed, in birthing my baby, I’d lost my name.
Over the days and weeks of utter bafflement and with little support and no sense of genuine community, I developed chronic postnatal insomnia, alongside which came spiralling poor mental health and weekly psychiatric care.
So. What did I do?
I read, I wrote, I listened.
Books, podcasts, TED Talks. Poetry, memoir, graphic novels. I hoovered them up. I cried and I raged - and I began to journal.
I rewrote the narrative of motherhood and freed myself from those I'd inherited.
For me, creativity is not only deeply therapeutic but rebellious too.
In 2019, the day before I was induced with my second child, The New Mothers’ Writing Circle was born – and I haven’t looked back since.*
The New Mothers’ Writing Circle is part consciousness-raising, part creative writing, part therapeutic, part community-building and proudly feminist.
Like all of us mothers, it does a lot.
Watch BBC's mini-documentary and Creative Scotland's film about this work here.
Ready to join me? Sign up here.
*In truth, I have, of course, looked back, MANY TIMES. Nothing about matrescence is straightforward.
Instagram @newmumswriting
Programme Co-Leads
Chitra Ramaswamy
Chitra Ramaswamy is the author of two nonfiction books and a journalist with twenty years’ experience. Her first book, Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy (Saraband), is a work of narrative nonfiction examining the nine months of pregnancy and birth through nine personal essays. It won the Saltire First Book of the Year award and was shortlisted for the Polari prize. Chitra's second book, Homelands: The History of a Friendship (Canongate), is a hybrid biography-memoir exploring her friendship with Henry Wuga, a 98-year-old German Jewish refugee who came to Britain in the spring of 1939 on a Kindertransport. It won the Saltire Non Fiction Book of the Year and was selected by The Guardian as one of their top memoirs and biographies of 2022. Chitra has contributed essays to Antlers of Water, Nasty Women, The Freedom Papers, The Bi:ble, and Message From the Skies.
Instagram @chitgrrlwriter
Liz Berry
Liz Berry is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed collections Black Country (Chatto, 2014); The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018); The Dereliction (Hercules Editions, 2021) a collaboration with artist Tom Hicks; and most recently The Home Child (Chatto, 2023), a novel in verse. Liz’s work, described as “a sooty soaring hymn to her native West Midlands” (Guardian), celebrates the landscape, history and dialect of the region. Liz has received the Somerset Maugham Award, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The Writers' Prize and two Forward Prizes. Her poem ‘Homing’, a love poem for the language of the Black Country, is part of the GCSE English syllabus. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands and lives in Birmingham with her family.
Instagram: @misslizberry
Saima Mir
Saima Mir is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She is the author of the Times Bestseller, The Khan, and its sequel Vengeance.
The Khan has been optioned for TV.
She has written for The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph, and worked for the BBC.
Her work appeared in the anthology, It’s Not About the Burqa in 2019, and The Best Most Awful Job in 2020.
Saima is a recipient of The Commonwealth Broadcast Association World View Award, and The K Blundell Trust Award. Saima’s work has been longlisted for The SI Leeds Literary Prize, and The Bath Novel Award.
Instagram: @saimamir_author
Leah Hazard
Leah Hazard, a practising NHS midwife, bestselling author, activist and mother of two young women.
As a proud member of her profession, Leah is passionate about bringing midwifery and reproductive health into the public eye. As a firm believer that midwives lay the foundation for lifelong wellness, she is committed to providing evidence-based information in a way that’s accessible, nuanced, relatable and relevant to our times. Leah is the author of The Father's Home Birth Handbook, the bestselling memoir Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story, and most recently, award-winning Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began. Her writing has also been featured in The Guardian, New Statesman, The Times, Grazia and Refinery 29.
Instagram: @leahhazard