About Leah
Through spoken word poetry, autobiography, message-adorned clothes and film, I tell hard truths with passion, vulnerability and lyricism.
My work explores issues such as climate crisis, genocide, sexism and racism, not at a distance but from the memory, the body, the heart. My creativity is a form of resistance and of healing.
My award-winning short films have been screened at feminist, environmental, Jewish and poetry film festivals internationally.
My workshops offer a welcoming and inclusive space for people to explore language, emotion and creativity. Together, we use writing as a tool for connection, curiosity and self-expression, without pressure, judgement or the need for previous experience.
I have expertise in facilitating poetry and expressive writing workshops in a wide variety of settings, including arts organisations, community groups, mental health services, women’s groups and prisons. My approach draws on my own writing and performance practice, alongside a background in psychology and over five decades of practicing and teaching peer-counselling.
I have been a poet-in-residence in a women’s prison and as a Winston Churchill Fellow I travelled across the United States researching theatre and writing projects in women’s ‘correctional institutions’. I have received a Royal Society for Public Health commendation for my contribution to Creative Arts in the Criminal Justice System.
I have an MA in Creative Writing & Personal Development from the University of Sussex. I have been a Leverhulme Trust Writer-in-Residence in the Kent Academic Primary Care Unit at the University of Kent, and a Visiting Fellow in the Institute of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Keele University.
