Welcome
About Me:
Hello, I’m Elizabeth. For the past 20 years I’ve worked in international community work, publishing, local politics, and personal development. I’ve been an editor at Resurgence and Ecologist Magazine (the UK’s longest-running environmental magazine), and I’ve led a charity that works around the world. I’m a qualified coach, and a hillwalking guide — I use these skills to support individuals and organisations. I was an elected District Councillor in rural Devon up until May 2023 — my four-year term ended two days before I gave birth to my daughter.
I’m also a writer, and this is increasingly my focus. I’ve written for publications including Caught by the River, Plough Magazine, Spelt Magazine, Resurgence Magazine and The Ecologist, and was runner up in a National Geographic travel writing competition. I write (and read) about things like re-villaging, books, community, ecology, writing, wonder. I think about how we relate — and could relate — to the Earth and each other. I am working on a book.
I want to write truthfully in murky times, to be ok talking about my soul and heart and what matters, and to help others do the same. I want to think about and reject what diminishes our humanity and instead find and share what makes it sing. I think imagination, love, relationships, faith, beauty and other things that are often not taken seriously in decision-making spaces can help wake us up and walk us home.
About RedLands:
The name of this newsletter, ‘RedLands’, comes from the colour of the soil in places that have shaped me -- Devon in the UK’s Westcountry, and various African countries, especially Zambia. These soils nurture creativity, care, community. And now, for me, they nurture motherhood too.
RedLands is a place to think about the calling forth and care of the becoming world. It’s is a place for writing, for connection, for imagination, and for questions, perhaps things like…
How do we live humbly, bravely, lovingly, in a fragmented world?
Who am I? And how do I be myself in spaces that can expect me to be someone else?
What does re-villaging mean in scattered and polarised times?
How do we be a neighbour to people we might not like?
How do I find work that makes me come alive?
What if we approached [insert business-as-usual process] differently?
What can poetry tell us about who we are, and who we might be?
How can writing change things?
How can I help fix broken things - nature, soils, souls - when I don’t know how to start?
What can motherhood tell us about what we value and how we care?
How do we bridge divides (e.g. urban/rural, sacred/secular, left/right)?
How do we engage in local and civic spaces, and input to decision-making?
Does any of this resonate with you? What are you curious about? What do you imagine the becoming world to look like? I’d love to know a bit about you if you decide to stick around — what interests you? What do you read? What brought you here? Get in touch or leave a comment — really! — I’d love to explore all this together.
You can support my work by subscribing for free to RedLands — you’ll receive two posts a month by email (or via the Substack app if you’d rather not clutter your inbox).
Or, for £4 a month (or £30 a year) you can support my work more practically (I so appreciate this, as a mother working around the edges of motherhood). In addition to free posts, paid subscribers receive:
• Additional ‘Write Life’ posts, with thoughts about and support for writers, creators, and wayfinders
• Insights into my book-in-progress
• Occasional extra essays
• ‘Super supporters’ get a handwritten card, plus a coaching session on a topic of their choice (writing, work, life, something else)
I have a website too, and I’m (sporadically) on Twitter and Instagram. To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
