I’ve had a wonderful time at the Belfast Book Festival this week and am sad to be leaving tomorrow morning. This is just a quick recap of the past week or two – I’ll be posting a link to the TV interview I did for the Writing Depression project in a few days’ time – but in short I feel privileged to have been a part of it.
The Writing Depression project is still in very early stages, but we had our first festival event on Monday night. Liz Fraser and I took the stage to an audience of over 70 people to talk about links between writing and depression, the latest research on how creative writing can assist with mental well-being, and we talked about our personal experiences of finding a pathway to mental wellness through writing and finding a balance (writing can actually cause depression as much as it helps it….) Our audience was engaged, interactive, and thoughtful. We had loads of great questions, and it seemed as though the hour flew past.
The pre-event publicity indicated that the project is of serious interest. I had a radio interview on Sunday morning with BBC Radio Ulster, a rather large two-page spread in the Belfast Telegraph, an interview with Irish News, and a TV interview.
I’ve posted an audio recording of the festival event below – do leave your thoughts on this in the comments below, or drop me a line. I’ve set up a twitter handle for the project, too: @writedepression. Tweet me!