New writing in an aged care setting

To investigate the health benefits of participating in creative writing workshops, in 2015 and 2016 a group of academics from Western Sydney University ran an intervention in two retirement homes. Asked to participate in both ‘life writing’ and ‘experimental’ writing exercises rather than purely in life writing alone, participants showed an ability to write in ways they had not done previously, with the two modes of writing practice proving complementary. Two case studies, Skipper and Brydon, show how participants engaged in ‘new writing’ in different ways. A study of the data on the continuing independently run workshops between the two interventions and after the second one reveals that the participants continued to write in ‘new ways’ even after the academic facilitators had ceased being involved.