Past event
Creative Writing in the Archive Reclaiming the marginalised voices and imagined lives of eighteenth-century sex workers - Pay what you can £6 or £4
Working in the spaces between history and fiction with the premise that ‘if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got', Dr Emma Mitchell blends archival research with experimental creative writing practices and forms.
Emma generates historical fiction that engages with objects, perfume, needlecraft, herbalism and more to access the voices of women consigned to the margins of history and honour their experiences.
This session includes an introduction to her techniques, readings of her work, and some practical exercises, followed by a question and answer (Q&A) session. No creative writing experience needed.
Emma Mitchell is an AHRC-funded Creative Writing doctoral researcher at Brunel University of London, whose work employs archival research and experimental literary forms and practices to reclaim marginalised voices from History. Her recently-submitted PhD thesis included an experimental historical fiction novel, An Odd Surprising Cluster, based on the lives of Georgian sex workers that was shortlisted in the 17th-19th-century category of the Historical Novel Society's 2026 First Chapters Prize. Her multi-modal, interdisciplinary practice employs contemporary documents, objects, fragrances and movement to generate embodied narratives that place women's voices front and centre. In former lives she's been a school teacher, a brand strategist, and an award-winning comedian and burlesque artist. She was a 2024 London Library Emerging Writer and her poetry and fiction have been published in numerous collections.