Hermit Crab Essays
When a little structure is needed for your vulnerable content
If you are new here, hello and welcome! I am Mel Parks and I run creative writing workshops in Sussex, UK while being a freelance writer, researcher and editor. I began this Substack, Awen, in 2022 as a gathering place for my thoughts about the writing process and to share some stories and creative inspiration along the way. Awen is free to read and share.
I run a weekly Tuesday afternoon (2-3pm UK time) guided creative writing session on live on Zoom for paid members. If you’d like to join, click the subscribe button and choose paid membership for £8 per month or £80 per year. If you are not able to subscribe (or don’t want to!), then please email me for alternative ways to join.
Dear all
My UNFURL season of workshops began with a labyrinth, went into the depths of a cave, then explored underwater worlds. We are beginning to come up for air now and this week’s theme was rockpools. As a slight tangent, this week, I thought I’d take the hermit crab as a character to work with and linked the hermit crab essay.
It’s a fascinating creature as it finds empty shells of molluscs to live in to protect its vulnerable soft body. The shell has to be exactly the right size, weight, shape and even colour. They have to find new homes as they grow. This can result in some house-swap chains as each crab searches for the perfect place.
A hermit crab essay borrows an existing form of writing — a recipe, instructions, for sale advert, labels, album notes — for structure. This can protect vulnerable content ‘but act as a firm container for content that might be intellectually or emotionally difficult’ (Randon Billings Noble, A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays)
I am in the beginning stages of writing a nature memoir celebrating weeds and this week, I asked myself the question: who am I writing this book for? and the answer came to me: for my (anxious, unconfident) younger self. So this is my hermit crab essay - a book dedication to my younger self:
Dedication
I dedicate this book to the quiet child who cherished the treasure she found in her Christmas stocking one year: The I-Spy Guide to Wildflowers. She took it with her on walks and added up the points every time she saw a clump of primroses in the hedgerows. To the same child who gathered goose grass to feed to the donkey over the gate in the nearby field, who made a wish every time she blew the seeds of a dandelion clock into the wind, and sucked nectar out of the base of clover petals.
I dedicate this book to the brave teenager who left Swansea for a summer job in Massachusetts taking care of a couple of small children. The teenager who walked slowly with each of those children in their neighbourhood clutching a tiny basket to gather wildflowers to display in a jam jar at home. The teenager who watched the sunset with them from their decking as part of a bedtime ritual.
I dedicate this book to the resilient twenty something who stretched out in London parks making daisy chains, ran her hands through the seed heads on long grasses in her rental communal garden, and grew ferns on her shady balcony, while looking out at the neighbour’s walled garden of vegetable rows and wondering about a future life.
I dedicate this book to the younger version of myself who has sometimes felt like a weed, overlooked, quietly finding her way in the world, growing anyway, no matter what.
If you want to read more about hermit crab essays
https://true.proximitymagazine.org/2018/01/18/randonbillingsnoble/
https://nadjamaril.com/2022/09/04/writer-tired-of-rejections-try-penning-a-hermit-crab-essay/
https://thinairmagazine.org/2018/11/03/the-hermit-crab-essay-brenda-miller-unshells-her-own/
Creative Writing Workshops with me (Mel Parks)
**NEW** Haiku to Haibun: The Japanese Way of Nature Writing
A nature-based creative writing workshop at Sussex Prairie Garden (in-person) on 1 August 2024. 10-1.30pm.
A creative writing workshop based in nature making the most of the peaceful environment at Sussex Prairie Garden. We will take a gentle stroll through the garden guided by me (Mel Parks), pausing now and then to write and quietly notice the surroundings with all of our senses.
Back in the gallery space, next to the tea shop, we will take a break for tea, coffee and biscuits, before using what we've written in the garden to create haiku and haibun. These brief Japanese forms of writing, developed by Basho in the seventeenth century on his poetry walks, are perfect for capturing moments and the essence of experiences in nature. They are also an ideal starting point, even if you have never done creative writing before and they are brilliant for nature journalling too.
£60 for the morning session, which also includes entry to the garden, where you can linger for as long as you like in the afternoon.
Let me know by replying to this email if you’d be interested in this workshop on Zoom.
Tuesday afternoons on Zoom (2-3pm UK time)
£8 per month or £80 per year with a paid Awen Substack subscription.
We started a new season last week, but you can join in anytime.
Break: 28 May & 4 June
Last session: 16 July.
12 sessions altogether. You can come to as many as you are able to.
If you are not able to subscribe (or don’t want to!), then please email me for alternative ways to join.
Monthly Tuesday evenings in East Grinstead (7-9pm)
Thursday mornings in East Grinstead (10-12noon)
Series of five weeks beginning on 13 June (13 June; 20 June; 27 June; 4 July; 11 July)
If you attend my face-to-face groups regularly, you can also attend the Zoom group for no extra charge.
I have an online space where I post exercises and other resources so you can catch up if you miss a session or you'd like to return to something after the workshop.
Until next time…
This newsletter was created by Mel Parks, a writer, researcher and workshop facilitator based in Sussex, UK. Mel runs writing workshops locally and on Zoom and researches creativity in midlife as well as her personal connection to nature. She has been widely published and is currently working on a series of moon and plant-inspired essays.
It is free to read and share, but if you value my work, please do stop by my virtual honesty box and leave a handful of loose change.
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