I’m delighted to be offering 4 new workshops at this year’s Faversham Literary Festival. Whether you’re working on short fiction, a novel, or a work of narrative non-fiction, there’s something for you here. How do we structure work so that the openings create promise, while the endings deliver? How can we put more drama in our work as well as learn to be more playful? Bookings for workshops with me, novelist Sarah Leipciger and Game Master Bethany Climpson are available now on the Faversham Literary Festival 2026 writing workshops site. Happy writing!

Do you have a Substack? Me too, though it’s taken me a while to figure out how I want to use it, when and why.

I’m changing – and so is where I want to write. This site will continue to be a container for upcoming events as well as writing I’ve done so far, while my Substack, Notes from the Blue House, will be for newer writing, all the kinds I aim to do. That’s the plan, anyway.

Substack’s a mighty ocean, and I’m a tiny fish, but my words are free and friendly. You can read the first post here: Welcome.

On Saturday 20 September, I am delighted to join Bracken & Bloom for a day of workshops in the heart of the Kent countryside – a gorgeous day out!

We’ll start with teas and coffees at 10:30am before a two-hour writing workshop, to celebrate and prepare for the equinox: Where do we find balance in our writing and our lives? What do we want to harvest? How can we learn to let go – like the leaves? After a delicious cheese and charcuterie lunch, wonderful Kate will lead a flower arranging workshop, using fresh, seasonal, and sustainable locally-grown flowers. At 4pm, you’ll leave with a meadow-style table centre in a cement planter – all included in the £70 ticket price.

To learn more – and to book your place – please visit Bracken & Bloom on Instagram or on Facebook. It would be a treat to see you there.

Ahoy! So delighted to announce our new venture. I am one-third of Hope & Anchor Writing:

Hope & Anchor is three writers: Peggy Riley, Sarah Leipciger and Joanna Quinn. We met on a creative writing course nearly twenty years ago. We know from experience that writing requires both encouragement (hope!) and support (an anchor!) so founded Hope & Anchor to help our fellow writers improve their skills and stay motivated.

To learn more or to book on an upcoming writing course in Bethnal Green (East London), Whitstable (East Kent), or Sherborne (Dorset), please visit our site: https://www.hopeandanchorwriting.com Or sign up to join the mailing list.

I am back from snowy Scotland and a wonderful two-week residency at Cove Park. It is so rare to have two uninterrupted weeks to write and think and stare; I am very grateful to my university, Canterbury Christ Church, for supporting my research. In that time, I was able to finish a book proposal and submit it, add 40K to a non-fiction project and 10K to a nearly finished novel. While I was there, we moved from autumn to winter. The pond froze outside the window in my little shipping container home, and snow fell in fat and lacy flakes. I raced home, just ahead of Storm Bert via one taxi and three trains.

If you would like to go to Cove Park too, here’s a link to learn more. Cove Park. For pictures of snow and the frozen pond through my window, come find me on BlueSky: @peggyriley.bsky.social

Here’s a screenshot of the wide variety of talks and workshops on offer today from NAWE, the National Association of Writers in Education. My talk was on New Ways to Workshop: De-stressing, Decentring, Decolonising. Now, to put my notes and slides into a coherent article!

Very happy to be a part of this year’s National Flash Fiction Day Flash Flood. To read my flash, ‘Coyote Summer’, please click this link: Coyote Summer . Many thanks to the busy team at National Flash Fiction Day!

Very happy to return to Faversham’s fabulous festival to chat with Sarah Jane Butler and celebrate her debut novel, Starling, which I also had the pleasure to read as a PDF. Congratulations, Sarah – and Faversham Lit Fest!

Last year, my student writing group – The Writing Circle – wrote a collaborative piece about the experience of lockdown, “a year of this”. This year, we felt called to respond to COP26 and questions about climate change. How do we feel? What can we do? We work together online, writing to prompts in real time on a Padlet, a shared digital cork board. During half term, we printed the Padlet out, cut it into pieces, and pasted it together in a “real” room in the library – as well as online.

In these times of climate anxiety and powerlessness, it might feel like we can’t do much of anything to affect change. But staying engaged with our own thoughts and feelings is a start. We can refuse to be in denial about what we witness and experience. We can ask ourselves and each other difficult questions. The end result of our questions is currently installed in the COP26 Hub in the Creative Arts building at Canterbury Christ Church.

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Whoop! Today is the UK paperback release of last year’s anthology, The Best, Most Awful Job, released in the early days of the pandemic – and also the US hardback release of same. No party ‘cept for a little online cheering – but there are some cheering blurbs by other folks as well as tweets and posts on social media.

Maybe you’d like to read? You’ll find me – and a whole lot more wonderful authors writing their hearts out.