About Us
CREATIVITY IS A RADICAL ACT
We’ve supported thousands of students to write more with more joy...
Write like a Grrrl is a collective of writers who are passionate about supporting marginalised genders to develop their writing craft and confidence. Creating community is what we’re all about!
We’re very proud of the supportive feminist community we’ve created and the thousands of students who have graduated from WLAG across the world.
We work collectively to encourage our students’ confidence and creativity in a patriarchal society which would prefer us voiceless. We will not be silenced. A word after a word is power.
Founded by Kerry Ryan in 2015, our courses run or have run in Russia, America, Australia, Mauritius, India, Iceland and Ireland. In the UK, WLAG courses and workshops have sold out in Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Norwich, Brighton, Bristol and all across London!
We’re absolutely committed to access and inclusion and ensure our courses and workshops are low cost and accessible for all. For more please see FAQS.
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Our history
Write like a Grrrl began in 2015 in a room with a leaking roof at the Feminist Library. From that small beginning, WLAG has grown into a worldwide network of writers supporting writers.
Our courses are taught or have been taught in Moscow, St Petersburg, Kazan in Russia; Australia; Mauritius; the USA Ireland, India and Iceland. We’ve worked with New Queers on the Block, Spotlight, Performance Space, Take Up Space, STUC, Creative Folkestone, Arts Emergency, Faber and others to deliver writing workshops and courses. We’ve published a WLAG poetry anthology with Signal House Press and an anthology of graduates’ writing will be out in the world in 2022 published by Grind and Bearing Press.
With the excellent Claire Askew and Jane Bradley of For Books’ Sake, we curated Grrrl Con in 2016 and 2017 in Edinburgh and Manchester. Grrrl Con was a three-day festival of writing for emerging writers and a whole lot of fun! Our 2016 programme featured keynote talks from Scottish Makar Jackie Kay, award-winning crime writer and playwright Denise Mina, acclaimed literary agent Jenny Brown and more. The weekend also had practical, interactive workshops, including sessions from Lucy Ribchester, Helen Sedgwick, Khadijah Ibrahiim and Marjorie Lofti Gill. The 2017 programme featured Monique Roffey, Jenn Ashworth, Patience Agbabi, Leone Ross and many others.
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Our Students
Many of our students have gone onto publish novels, poetry & short story collections, write plays and graduate with Masters and PhDs in creative writing. They’ve been published by Hodder & Stoughton, Penguin, Borough Press, Random House and many others.
Yet what’s most important for us at WLAG is that our graduates have found joy in their daily writing practice, creating with compassion and pleasure, strengthening their craft while shrinking the inner critic, and all with the steadfast support of our brilliant community.
Our Tutors
WLAG Founder: Kerry Ryan (she/they).
Kerry has won the Spilling Ink short story prize, been shortlisted for the Myriad First Editions prize, the 2023 Writers & Artists Prize, and had writing published in The Manchester Review, The Kenyon Review, 3am Magazine among others. She is editor of ‘So Long as You Write‘ (Dear Damsels) 2022 and the Write like a Grrrl anthology (Grind and Bearing) 2022. Her poetry can be found in the Spectrum anthology by Renard Press, Unseen Workers- a collaborative project with the University of Oxford & the British Ecological Society, and published widely. In 2022, she received the Arts Council England DYCP award. She has a Masters with distinction and a PhD in Literary Studies/Creative Writing.
Isha Karki is a writer and PhD student based in London. Her short fiction has won the Dinesh Allirajah Prize, Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize and Mslexia Short Story Competition. She has been shortlisted in competitions such as The White Review, Desperate Literature, and London Short Story Prize and her work has appeared in publications including Augur Magazine, Extra Teeth and Lightspeed. She is a 2019 graduate of Clarion West and currently a judge on the 2021/22 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize. You can find her on Twitter: @IshaKarki11
Sara Sherwood is a writer based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Sara’s short stories have been featured in Dear Damsels’ anthology Let Me Know When You’re Home: Stories of Female Friendship and Test Signal, an anthology of best new northern writing published by Dead Ink and Bloomsbury. Her short story Likes was also Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize in 2018. Sara has an MA in Creative Writing from the Manchester Writing School and loves creating supportive, caring and creative environments for writers of all abilities, backgrounds and ambitions to thrive. You can follow Sara on Twitter and Instagram: @sarasherwood
Kirsty Jones is a Bristol-based writer. Her work has been published with Grind&bearing Press, Nightingale & Sparrow, Dear Damsels and others. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured on BBC Radio Bristol, she has worked with Vanessa Kisuule to develop spoken word performances for world class venue, St George’s. Kirsty performed at Bristol’s Party on the Green in 2023 alongside City Poet, Kat Lyons, and is currently working on her first poetry collection. Her debut children’s picture book, No Matter the Distance, was released in 2021. You can find her on Instagram: @k_jones_writer
Write like a Grrrl: Russia
Write Like a Grrrl Russia works in partnership with the publishing house No Kidding Press. Hundreds of students have graduated from courses in Moscow, Kazan and St Petersburg and we are so proud of the brilliant, supportive work the Russian tutors and course conveners do. In addition to courses and events, WLAG Russia has published three collections of WLAG writing: “Without permission”, “A small book of stories about sexuality” and “Friendship”. Check out WLAG Russia and all the fantastic work they do…
