“Moving, subtle, lucid…” Robert Macfarlane
“Tanya creates intriguing space in public places where the curious find themselves engaging in a writer’s practice and volunteering their own stories to be woven into her work.” David Nash RA
As a writer and former hospice lifestory scribe, I work in residence — often outside — to encourage and embolden others to share stories and take their own creative risks: a practice which has earned me Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts.
My major work to date is Wild Patience: a mile of scroll writing begun on residency beside Pells Pool in Sussex and completed by Lake Geneva as guest of The Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature. It asked those who came close: When did you feel most wild and free?
The Wild Patience Scrolls have been featured alongside my mentor David Nash’s Ash Dome and James Turrell’s Roden Crater in the BBC Radio 4 show Pursuit of Beauty: Slow Art (while an Outdoor Swimming Society feature on the work gives a sense of the depths it sounded in the lives of others).
Founder of The Selkie Press, I am editor of two wild swimming books Wild Woman Swimming: A Journal of West Country Waters by the late Lynne Roper (Selkie Press, 2018) and Watermarks: Writing by Lido Lovers & Wild Swimmers (Frogmore Press, 2017).
My five-minute live Wild Writer talk for the global PechaKucha network is a quick telling of my late-emerging creative life and commitment to public art & service.
Writing and presenting credits include The Guardian, Radio 4 Extra, Oh Comely Magazine, The Simple Things, Rakes Progress, & Kendal Mountain Literature Festival, and I am visiting tutor on the lifewriting course at New Writing South.
Please send project or press enquiries to tanya@tanyashadrick.com. You are also welcome to connect with me on Instagram @tanyashadrickwriter or on Twitter @tanyashadrick
“In Tanya’s words one can feel the sense of personal ownership and self-sufficiency…Nobody rules you, nothing has ruined you, you are gleefully, determinedly, yourself.” Swell, Jenny Landreth (Bloomsbury, 2017)
“Profound. Liberating. Empowering…Tanya’s teaching feels like an incredibly constructive discussion, engaging not only the learner’s mind but also body and whole way of being in the world. The weeks spent in her company have had a profound, long-lasting impact on my practice.” Student (New Writing South, 2018)
