Intertidal Walking and Writing Workshop with JR Carpenter and Sylak Ravenspine
Essex Writers House

Sunday 14 June, time TBC
Meeting point: TBC

Join artist, writer, fossil hunter, and Port of London Authority (PLA) licensed mudlark J. R. Carpenter with local Essex based artist Sylak Ravenspine for an intertidal walking and writing workshop in the Thames Estuary. As we move between high and low tide, mud flats and marshland, fresh and salt water, we will navigate the creative space between noticing and noting, where writing happens.

J.R. will share her journey around her new book p a u s e. which is out now. In p a u s e. J. R. Carpenter turns the simple act of going for a walk into a radical practice of attention. Written over the course of a year of daily encounters with kisiskâciwanisîpiy (the North Saskatchewan River) as it runs through amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton).

Written in short, breath-like fragments, p a u s e. drifts between field note, love poem, and land acknowledgement, refusing to settle as a genre. Fossils, wildfire haze, trumpeter swans, city traffic, and pandemic loneliness all pass through its pages, as the poem keeps returning to one insistent question: what happens when we treat noticing as a form of care and listening as a way of giving something back?

Tickets: £25 includes packed lunch and transport
Book tickets: eventbrite booking link coming soon – keep an eye out on Metal website, socials and newsletter for updates.

Benfleet mud flats © Philippa Stewart

J. R. Carpenter

Photo of J.R. Carpenter © J.R. Carpenter

J. R. Carpenter is an artist, writer, performer, and researcher working on questions of place, displacement, migration, colonialism, and climate, across performance, print, and digital media. Her work has been presented in museums, galleries, and festivals around the world. Her debut poetry collection, An Ocean of Static, was highly commended for the Forward Prizes 2018. She is a Fellow of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library and the Moore Institute at NUI Galway. She is currently a Lecturer in Performance Writing at University of Leeds.

Sylak Ravenspine

Photo of Sylak Ravenspine © Niki Cornish

Sylak Ravenspine is an Essex-based eco-artist whose practice is rooted in the local landscape. Drawing deep inspiration from the tidal marshes and eroding coastlines of Essex, Sylak forages material from the area, imparting a sense of fragility, ecological stewardship, and renewal into everything he creates. His ‘Inks of Essex’ provide a fluid representation of the environment, while his work on recording soil structures redefines field data as an artform. Sylak’s work responds to the land with an intentional surrender to natural cycles that challenges traditional notions of permanence and control in art.

Part of Essex Writers House – A collaborative partnership between Metal and Essex Book Festival, 01 – 30 June 2026

Essex Writers House is a month-long programme hosted by Metal, based in Southend. Chalkwell Hall opens its doors through June as a creative hub, offering a range of events from talks, open advice sessions and workshops to collaborative workspaces for writers, story tellers and book lovers of all levels. Find out more at essexbookfestival.org.uk/event/essex-writers-house-2026/.