The Writing Life

Writing through place: Heidi Williamson & Rebecca Goss on poetry, memory and healing

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Episode notes

In this episode of The Writing Life, poets Rebecca Goss and Heidi Williamson discuss using place as a vessel to write about difficult subjects and memories in poetry.

Rebecca Goss is a poet, tutor and mentor, living in Suffolk. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, anthologies and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Arts online. Her third full-length collection, Girl, was published with Carcanet/Northern House in 2019 and was shortlisted in the East Anglian Book Awards 2019. Her fourth full-length collection, Latch, was published in 2023.

Heidi Williamson’s first collection Electric Shadow was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize. Heidi works with poets worldwide by Skype as a Poetry Surgeon for The Poetry Society, teaches for The Poetry School, and mentors writers through the National Centre for Writing.

In this podcast, Rebecca and Heidi discuss the moments they knew they were ready to write about their past experiences, and the power that comes from giving yourself permission to feel the happiness alongside the pain when writing about difficult moments in their lives. They also explore the importance of drawing from memories of landscape and place, the power of quietness in poetry, and how researching for writing may initially feel inauthentic but is actually a powerful tool for building depth.