CURRENT PROJECTS
Wild Women Writers' Salons - curating and hosting a year-long project focusing on memoir and creative non-fiction by women writers
PUBLISHED NON-FICTION/MEMOIR
All My Wild Mothers - Two Roads Books (Hachette) 2023
Moving Mountains - Writing Nature though Illness and Disability - ed. Louise Kenward (Footnote Press 2023)
North Country - An anthology of landscape and nature - ed. Karen Lloyd (Saraband 2022)
Minecraft Life Hacks Lab for Kids - co-written with Adam Clarke Quarto (2019)
PUBLISHED POETRY
Butcher's Dog Magazine Issue #14
To Start the Year from its Quiet Centre - pamphlet, Indigo Dreams (2020)
The Bloody Amazing Anthology - Yaffle Press/Beautiful Dragons (2020)
The Mountain We Cannot See Anthology - Slice of the Moon (2020)
Imagining Life After COVID-19 - Womawords Literary Press
International Times (April 2020)
The Beach Hut (December 2019)
As Above, So Below Issue 1 (December 2018)
#MeToo - A Women’s Poetry Anthology - Fair Acre Press, 2018 (Saboteur Best Anthology Winner 2018)
The Golden B00k - Fifty Years of Arvon - Arvon Foundation (2018)
Keeping Well, Keeping Connected Anthology - CarersUK (2018)
Deep Song - Awakening To Love - Troubadours of Divine Bliss (2012)
Rowing Home: A Journey Through Grief Anthology - Cruse Bereavement Charity (2009)
Wild Women Press publications
The 3am Club Anthology (2006)
Byron Makes His Bed (2006)
Fragments (2006)
Fragile Bodies (2004)
Wild Women Hot Pot of Passion Anthology (2000)
Anchoring The Light (1999)
Howl At The Moon: Writings by Wild Women (1999)
AWARDS
All My Wild Mothers - recipient of an Author's Foundation Grant Society of Authors
All My Wild Mothers - Winner Northern Debut Award (non-fiction)- New Writing North (2020)
All My Wild Mothers - Longlisted Penguin WriteNow Programme (2020)
All My Wild Mothers - Longlisted for The Lakeland Book of the Year Awards (2024)
All My Wild Mothers - Shortlisted for The People's Book Award (2023/4)
All My Wild Mothers - Longlisted for The Nan Shepherd Prize (2019)
ACE DYCP Grant 2021 exploring how literature can collaborate with immersive, digital spaces to share our grief stories
Shortlisted for Winston Churchill Fellowship (2020) for #Wild Woman Gamer
Highly Commended - Charroux Festival Memoir Prize (2029)
Highly Commended - Carers UK Photography Prize (2018)
CarersUK Writing Prize (2018) - Staff/Volunteer Choice
CommonUnity Award (Wild Women Press) - Post Office UK (2018)
Mother’s Milk Non-Fiction Writing Award (2017)
Digital Literature Bursary - The Writing Platform (2015)
Unsung Heroes Awards - shortlisted - Arts Council England (NW)
Northern Promise Award for Poetry - New Writing North (2002)
Andrew Waterhouse Award for Poetry - New Writing North (2002)
Millennium Mind Award for poetry - Anchoring The Light (1999)
WORKSHOPS & RESIDENCIES
Writers' Alliance Group for Literature Alliance Scotland 2023-24
Your Wild and Precious Life: discovering and nurturing your story (CRIPtic Arts - online, 2023)
Growing Older, Growing Wilder workshops (Wild Women Press - online, 2022)
Wood and Pixels - Bernheim International Artists' Residency (Kentucky 2016)
Invisible Orchard Family Studio - managing/hosting programme of workshops (Cumbria, 2012 - 2016)
Creative Writing tutor - Lancaster University BA (Hons) programme (2004 - 2006)
Wild Women Workshops (Cumbria 1999 - 2007)
Hero Inside residency, A Day in A Life residency (Prism Arts - arts without barriers - 1997 - 1999)
Survivors' Poetry facilitator - 1993 - 1996
PODCASTS
The Wildlife Community Podcast
The Audiobook Show - RNIB Radio
Women in Gaming - TECHNique Podcast (2020)
Minecraft and Grief, 2017, Gimlet Podcast, New York City
INTERVIEWS
Get Booked - Women's Radio Station
Lifestyles - TRE Radio
Sunday Bookclub - BBC Radio West Midlands
Stephanie Finnon Show (Grief Special) - BBC Radio Cumbria
Spelt Magazine
BBC Radio Cumbria
Interview on #MeToo & Harvey Weinstein, TRT World, 2018
Interview - My Mother's House: Grief, Poetry & Digital Gaming, Guardian Newspaper 2015
Interview - The Naked Muse Photo-Poetry Project - Guardian Newspaper 2011
ARTICLES
Article - An Orkney Miracle Drink - How wildflowers heal us - Inkcap Journal
Opinion piece - The Burden of Unpaid Care - Press and Journal
Opinion piece - We are not under invasion - Press and Journal
Article - Lessons in Loss and Wonder - Welldoing.org
Article - Experiencing grieving alongside new motherhood - The Belfast Telegraph
Article - Using gardening to cope with a diabetes diagnosis - The Reader's Digest
Article - My Sister Died When I Was Pregnant - people treated me differently - HuffPost
Article - My Sister Died Suddenly When I was Pregnant - i-News
Opinion - Wild Gardening & Losing Control - The Independent
Opinion - Pandemic schooling at home is not the same as home-schooling - The Independent
Article - The Wildnerness Between Love and Loss - Cancer Wellness Magazine
Articles - Create Hub Arts & Digital Technology
TALKS & PERFORMANCES
Chelsea Flower Show 2024
Kibworth Books 2024
Warwick Books 2024
Colonsay Book Festival 2024
Orkney Arts Society 2024
Helensburgh Book Festival 2024
Orkney Library 2023
Borders Book Festival 2023
Lighthouse Bookshop 2023
Waterstones, Kendal 2023
Verey Books 2023
Sam Read Booksellers 2023
Spelt Magazine live event 2023
Poetry & Games Festival Panel 2022
Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2020
Digital Past Conference 2020
Deer Shed Festival 2019
Barnsley Literature Festival 2019
Death & Dying Conference Panel 2020
Greenbelt Festival, Literature Tent & The Red Tent 2018
Saboteur Awards 2018
UcLan Literary Events 2018
Stanza Poetry Festival 2018
Greenbelt Festival, Grief and Gaming talk 2016
Minecon, Grief and Gaming, Los Angeles 2016
Mix Conference, My Mother's House - Grief& Gaming, BathSpa 2015
Naked Muse Tour 2011/12
Wild Women Press Salons, 2000-2007
Poetry Cafe 2006
The Convent, 2006, BBC1
Glastonbury Festival, Poetry & Words Tent 2005
Sheffield Literary Festival 2005
Stirling Poetry & Sexuality Conference 2004
Brewery Arts Centre 2004
Arts in Mental Health Festival 2000
KEY PROJECT LINKS
To Start The Year From Its Quiet Centre
An intimate meditation on love and loss that tells the story of a relationship between women that is transformed through grief.
Bennett’s poetry is controlled, spare and with the particular magic of inviting the reader in right-up-close -- agonisingly beautiful,
(Deborah Alma, The Poetry Pharmacy)
Published by Indigo Dreams Publishing Ltd. (August 2020).
Wild Women Writers' Salons Project
A year long programme of live online Writers’ Salons, curated and hosted by me, offering a welcoming and inspiring space for women authors of memoirs and creative non-fiction to take a deep-dive into their books and creative practice. Alongside this, I host a monthly programme of peer-support salons for participating author, and write/edit a monthly newsletter for subscribers.
Wild Women Press & The Wild Woman Web Project
Founded in 1999 with one simple mission: to offer a space where women could tell their stories and celebrate their wild. The Wild Women Poets have performed live at events around the UK and USA, and used their creativity to create positive change. We have worked with over 2000 women on a number of amazing projects, hosted the (in)famous Wild Women Salons.
The Wild Woman Web was started in 2018. Curated by Victoria, it is an inclusive space connecting wild women around the globe, with a focus on nature, creativity, and empowerment.
Minecraft Life Hacks Lab for Kids
VIctoria Bennett & Adam Clarke, Quarto Books 2019
A hands-on book for educators, parents, and players that encourages positive play, emotional intelligence, and responsible digital citizenship. Through a fun mix of in-game and hands-on projects, Unofficial Minecraft Life Hacks Lab for Kids shows how to develop the building blocks of positive communication, listening skills, leadership and collaboration traits, emotional empathy, self-confidence and self-control, and how these skills can be used to play positively and build a better world.
A VR-Music-Poetry collaboration with artist Adam Clarke, musician Beth Porter, and the #MeToo poetry anthology
A creative collaboration with digital artist Adam Clarke & and Beth Porter & Ben Please of The Bookshop Band to create a short VR music poetry video inspired by #MeToo: A Women's Poetry Anthology. Video created using Google Tilt Brush software. Longlisted for Best Collaboration - Saboteur Awards 2018
An international arts residency with Bernheim Forest, Kentucky
A unique 3 month residency, bringing together art, gaming, and nature through the perspective of an artist-family-in-residence. During our time at Bernheim, we created a series of poems and Minecraft maps in response to our experiences. These went on to become Wood and Pixels, an interactive Minecraft world that allows players to explore a range of locations within Bernheim
A playable Minecraft poem exploring terminal illness and loss
Supported by a bursary from The Writing Platform, and created in collaboration with artist, Adam Clarke. My Mother's House is a playable Minecraft poem that explores terminal illness and loss. I created this in response to my experience of being a carer for my mother through terminal cancer, during which time I was also a carer for my young son, as a way of exploring end-of-life experience with a young child. Featured in The Guardian and voted in the Top 5 Minecraft Maps 2016, and the Poetry Library Poetry & Games Festival 2022.
Exhibition and calendar curated by Victoria Bennett, featuring 41 poets and photographers
An exhibition featuring over thirty beautiful and unique nude male portraits of poets, created by women photographers in response to poems by women poets on the theme of the gaze -- one of the largest exhibitions of artwork by women featuring all male nudes. The project was featured widely in the media around the world.
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