What is the Mindful Writer about?
Who I am and why I'm writing here
Hi, I’m Amanda!
The Mindful Writer is all about making a difference with our words.
Our world is divided and the words we write, and speak, can help bring us together again. Everything I share here is about living and writing more mindfully and really digging deep into what we’re writing and why.
I truly believe that if we start to bring more stories filled with compassion, empathy and togetherness into the universe, then we can change our world.
People say I’m a dreamer but I have learned a lot about the connections between us all, and everything in the universe, in the past decade, and our thoughts and words have real power. More than we realise.
I write the Mindful Writer to help you find a deeper connection to yourself, your writing craft, and everything and everyone we share this amazing experience of being alive with. And for me to do the same, and make sense of all the things that happen to me. To connect with people walking the same path who want to slow down in a world that’s always speeding up. In 2024, inspired by the writing I have been doing here and the people I’ve been connecting with, I launched a new creative venture. Find out more here.
Join me to start spreading peace and love with your words.
All the lovely mindful things I’ve got coming up this year:
Find out about my mission to get everyone taking their time with their writing:
Who am I?
I’m a writer, editor, teacher and publisher from the UK who moves around a lot. I am houseless but not homeless as home is inside me and my happy, loving marriage. Since 2013, my husband and I have been constantly travelling, housesitting and doing work for accommodation exchanges. In the fifteen years before that we moved around all the time and the longest we have ever lived in one house is two years.
I have written two novels, As If I Were A River (2016) and Remember Tomorrow (2019), and a novella-in-flash, Pressure Drop (2024). I’ve had many short stories published, placed and listed in competitions, including the Mslexia Flash Prize, Fish Flash Prize and Flash500. You can read some of them here.
I’ve had some stories selected for the Top in Fiction Substack too.
I’m currently working on a whole host of short stories that are at various stages of development, and my third novel (or maybe it’s a novella or a long short story, I’m not sure yet!).
At my creative venture, Retreat West, which I started in 2012, I run an online community for writers, design and teach online courses and workshops, and provide editorial services. I also published books from 2018 until 2023 and brought 24 of them to the world in that time. In 2020 Retreat West was named Most Innovative Publisher at the Saboteur Awards (shortlisted 2019) and many of the books I published won awards too.
In 2022, I founded an online literary journal, WestWord.
I have been practicing mindfulness for many years and it changed my life and my writing. I also practice giqong and yoga and read a chapter of the Tao Te Ching everyday. I love mountains and beaches, birds and forests and lakes, and spend as much time outdoors as I can. Find out more about my personal journey of mindfulness here.
All of these things inform what I write in these posts and in my stories. I hope you enjoy my work. If you’d like to become a more mindful writer it would be great to have you along.
What does your subscription give you?
Personal essays about my ongoing journey of mindfulness and how this transformed my writing, and everything else about my life.
Ideas on how to deepen our connection to our writing to create stories, both fiction and non, that resonate with us as we write them and with the readers they reach.
Recommendations on something to read, watch or listen to, along with associated writing prompts, that can help us live and write more mindfully.
Paid subscribers have all of the same plus:
An additional post once a month: insights and inspiration adapted from my Year of Mindful Writing and Well Writer courses, these in-depth posts will help you dig deeper into who you are as a writer, what you’re writing for, and share ideas on how you can live and write with more compassion and joy, and less fear and judgement. They’ll help you connect more deeply to yourself, your writing craft, and everyone and everything you’re sharing this human experience with.
A Mindful Writing ebook: lots of ideas and writing prompts for mindfully connecting to your writing, which are extracts from my Year of Mindful Writing course.
Monthly Mindful Writing Marathons: writing sessions to help you find, develop and grow your voice and craft. Info here.
Access to private chat threads: gratitude prompts, mindful writing prompts and more.
A huge thank you: so much gratitude for your support of my work here!
Founding members have all of the above plus:
30-minute Zoom session: meet with me one-to-one to look at ways you can mindfully develop your craft.
Want to say thanks for my work but not commit to a membership?
My other offerings
There are lots of opportunities to work more closely with me to develop your writing craft.
Inspired by writing here, in 2024 I launched a new creative venture also called The Mindful Writer, which is where I bring together fiction, memoir, life writing and wellbeing so that we can use our words to heal ourselves, others, and our world.
Really enjoying your work and looking forward to read some of your novels and novellas when more time will become available.
Amanda, I just read your piece published for Conscious Living. A shortened version may fit nicely in The Zest if the Lemon. I would encourage you to submit. D