Char March - writer - tutor - mentor - editor
  • Hello!
  • What I do
    • Books
    • Performances
    • Courses
  • Currently...
  • Previous Residencies/Projects
    • Writer-in-Residence posts >
      • Writer-in-residence for Leeds Hospitals
      • Writer-in-Residence - NHS North West
      • Writer-in-Residence for Hull Univ Business School
      • Watershed Landscape Project - Writer-in-Residence >
        • Char's Watershed Blog
      • Annual Midwifery Conference
      • Impressions and York City Art Galleries
    • Calder Valley Heritage Trails
    • Poetry & Sculpture Trail - Yorkshire Dales National Park
    • Working with Hull Univ's Dept for Health & Social Care
    • International work on creativity
    • BBC Country Tracks - Ben Fogle
    • BBC 'Ramblings' with Clare Balding
    • The Egg, The Womb, The Head and The Moon
    • Settle Stories
    • Lecturer in Creative Writing - Leeds College of Art & Design
    • Dove Cottage - inspiring secondary teachers
    • Bronte Parsonage projects
    • Thackray Medical Museum projects
    • Find Your Talent
  • Char's background
  • Contact

So, what on earth made me into a writer?

No idea - especially as I took a science degree!  

I was born (after my Mum had a series of miscarriages - see my stories in Some Girls' Mothers) with the aid of an experimental drug (since banned).  This unfortunately wrecked my immune system, but, although I do get a bit fed up with the various disabilities this has thrown at me, I do realise it's all terribly character-building! ...as was growing up in the 1960s and '70s in the very-depressed industrial belt of Central Scotland. Oh joy!

Since then I've worked in everything from a brussel-sprout cutting shed to disability politics to Opera North, and have been a freelance writer for the last 25 years.  I adore sea-kayaking and mashed potato, and now live very happily in the Yorkshire Pennines.  I also spend a fair amount of time up in North West Scotland where my Mum lives - so clearly I have an affinity with rain.

I did my apprenticeship as a writer in the lesbian writing and performance group The Outlanders.  We met every week for over 7 years in Manchester and constantly wrote new material - poetry, sketches, monologues, fiction, and even a bit of stand-up - and tried it out at our very regular performances all over Britain.  This was a fantastic grounding in writing, receiving crit from other writers, and getting direct feedback from very lively audiences - and it forced me to constantly generate new work.  I can recommend this type of apprenticeship to any budding writers out there - gruelling, but lots of fun.

From The Outlanders, I set up my own theatre company and toured with this, and, after a couple of years, got into writing for radio through a lucky break - the Head of BBC Radio Drama came to see one of my stage plays at West Yorkshire Playhouse and asked me if I could do a radio version.  People Come Here To Cry has since been broadcast - to consistent acclaim - numerous times by the BBC.  I've since had five more BBC Radio 4 plays broadcast.

So, I started out in poetry and short fiction, moved into writing for the stage, then radio, tried my hand (and won a couple of awards) at telly and screenwriting, and, am currently ploughing on with my first novel.  I love it and hate it by turns.  You can read several chapters of it - as stand-alone short stories - in my collection 'Something Vital Fell Through'.  

In 2011, I was head-hunted by the wonderful Ronnie Goodyer at Indigo Dreams Publishing - an independent publisher.  He has been an absolute dream to work with, and has published my latest two poetry collections:  'The Thousand Natural Shocks', and 'The Cloud Appreciation Society's Day Out'.  And my first short story collection 'Something Vital Fell Through'.

I also tutor and lecture in creative writing - working with age groups as wide as 4-year-olds to 98-year-olds.  I love this work - helping budding writers learn the art and craft (and hard graft!) of writing.  It gives me a real buzz when I see my students' skills and confidence really start to develop, and when their own writing 'voice' comes out to play.





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  • Hello!
  • What I do
    • Books
    • Performances
    • Courses
  • Currently...
  • Previous Residencies/Projects
    • Writer-in-Residence posts >
      • Writer-in-residence for Leeds Hospitals
      • Writer-in-Residence - NHS North West
      • Writer-in-Residence for Hull Univ Business School
      • Watershed Landscape Project - Writer-in-Residence >
        • Char's Watershed Blog
      • Annual Midwifery Conference
      • Impressions and York City Art Galleries
    • Calder Valley Heritage Trails
    • Poetry & Sculpture Trail - Yorkshire Dales National Park
    • Working with Hull Univ's Dept for Health & Social Care
    • International work on creativity
    • BBC Country Tracks - Ben Fogle
    • BBC 'Ramblings' with Clare Balding
    • The Egg, The Womb, The Head and The Moon
    • Settle Stories
    • Lecturer in Creative Writing - Leeds College of Art & Design
    • Dove Cottage - inspiring secondary teachers
    • Bronte Parsonage projects
    • Thackray Medical Museum projects
    • Find Your Talent
  • Char's background
  • Contact