Writing Saved My Life

“Writing Saved My Life.”


The first thing that you notice about Alison Summers is the twinkle in her eye that promises fun and frolics. It was not always so easy for Summers to twinkle however. Ten years ago, after a difficult divorce and custody battle, Summers found herself living with her four year old daughter in a small, top floor flat on benefits. The bi-polar disorder that had reared its head on and off since her late twenties reappeared with a vengeance and for several years Summers fought her instinct to alternately cower under the bedclothes and rule the world by concentrating on parenting and joining a self-help group, Co-Counselling in Scotland. Despite periods of black depression when Summers used to wake up crying and have to drag herself out of bed, she joined Parent Link (now called Parenting Matters) and began to write articles for their newsletter. Through her contact with Co-Counselling In Scotland, Summers became familiar with alternative health therapies and tried various ones, holographic repatterning, aromatherapy and reiki in an effort to shift her despair.

“I was lucky,” says Summers, “I had lots of support. My GP used to look me in the eyes and say firmly “You know, you will get better”, I had a lovely CPN who appreciated my coffee and said that I ought to write articles about depression for magazines and my Mum used to come up on the bus all the way from the Borders,once a week and take me out for lunch.” There is no sign of the illness now as Summers talks enthusiastically about her company Wordstore Workshops.

“When I first started teaching Creative Writing in Adult Education, I noticed that although the class was not billed as being “therapeutic”, therapeutic things were happening all the time!” Summers talks of her students “transforming themselves” as the ten week course progressed. She noticed that students who really applied themselves to writing in a complex form such as a sonnet, not only gained confidence in their writing skills but also said that they felt as though they had released a long held burden and now felt able to move on in life. This echoed Summers’ own writing experience.

“When I was depressed I went to a group for people who were having difficulties. It was very informal, run by two sympathetic ladies, one a Norwegian occupational therapist, another a support worker from Outlook who dispensed coffee and biscuits and kept up a cheerful banter for an hour and a half, quite unabashed by the silence of the group. One day they came in with the adult education programme for the summer and forced each of us to agree to attend one class.” Summers chose to go to a Creative Writing class in a local school. Her eyes sparkle as she remembers the first session.

“It was run by a really nice chap who was in the middle of writing his first novel. There were only half a dozen of us, a couple of young housewives, me, and an elderly man. The tutor was so positive – he found something good to say about all of our writing. He had brilliant ideas for stimulating us into writing. One day he asked us to bring in an object to inspire us. One girl brought in a really tacky garden gnome, lying on his elbow and grinning in a jaunty way. It was a truly awful thing.” Summers chuckles as she remembers.

“Anyway, I started writing about the gnome as though it had strayed into a secretarial employment agency – I had just had a rather humiliating experience in one when my typing and wordprocessing tests had gone horribly wrong and the recruiting lady had looked down her nose at me – so I made up a story where the gnome was told off for sitting on the floor and wearing too much lipstick!” ( This story eventually turned into a short story, “Feathers") Summers grins broadly.
“The class and the tutor loved it – they roared with laughter and clapped. I left the class floating and after that, writing played a huge part in my recovery from depression.”

Summers went on to run a creative writing group for Survivors’ Poetry where she found that her counselling skills were stretched to the limit by group members who insisted on complete silence when they were writing, who arrived at classes wearing only one shoe and one who warned the group that if any of them swore he would involuntarily hit them.

She found that developing sensitive antennae at Survivors’ Poetry stood her in good stead when she joined Edinburgh Council’s team of adult education tutors.
“I knew both from my time at Survivors’ Poetry and from my own experience as a student in writing classes that putting pen to paper has a way of quickly bringing up “stuff” that has been long buried. Even if we control our own writing carefully, often other people’s pieces can touch us in places we didn’t know existed.” Summers explains how she always warns students that “writing reaches the parts other arts don’t” and she is as comfortable with students that weep in class as she was encouraged by the laughter in that first class many years ago.

“The tears that are wept in writing classes are healing tears.” Summers says firmly.
“They have a different chemical composition to tears of anger or frustration.”
Fascinated by the effect that writing had upon herself and her students, Summers researched the subject of therapeutic writing and found that it had been used in situations from dementia to bereavement in order to help with acceptance and moving on.
“I read everything about therapeutic writing that I could lay my hands on,” says Summers, “and when I found out that crafting a piece of writing actually improved people’s immune systems, I decided that I had to use my writing skills and teaching experience to improve people’s lives.” She frowns as she realises how pompous she sounds. “Actually, I needed a reason to keep on writing and teaching when I could have got a “proper” job.” Summoned to an interview at the job Centre, Summers noticed a leaflet offering support for single parents wanting to set up their own business. She suggested to the interviewer that perhaps she could set up her own business running creative writing workshops. Noticing that the interviewer seemed underwhelmed by this idea she quickly explained the benefits of therapeutic writing and as she talked a vision of how GP’s surgeries could use her services to help patients with depression unfolded as she talked. The interviewer became enthusiastic, registered Summers for the course and Wordstore Workshops, Writing Workshops for Health and Happiness, Summers company was born.

Welcome to Wordstoreworkshops!

My name is Alison Summers. I am a writer and tutor. I set up my company Wordstore Workshops in March 2004.

For several years I have been interested in the link between creative writing and improvement in health. I found that writing played a large part in my recovery from chronic clinical depression. In the course of teaching adults creative writing I noticed that writing a sonnet about a long buried grief could produce the mourning that was long overdue. I am keen to introduce creative writing to organisations who are familiar with other stress relieving techniques such as yoga. For me writing is yoga for the mind and the psyche. How can you know what you think until you see what you write? This is the huge advantage of writing over talking therapies! I am not a therapist but the writing is therapeutic.

For details of workshops please contact me:

Alison Summers

alisonjmsummers@hotmail.co.uk