Based in Sheffield, UK – I’m a creative facilitator, writer, maker, and mentor – specialising in creative writing & making arts for joy, healing, liberation and courage.
I believe everyone is inherently and divinely creative. That everyone has the right to write and make their hearts out. This stuff is in our bones. Inherited from our ancestors. Waiting to be expressed through us.
My work centres the spirit of the Sanskrit word ‘kula’~ creative and alchemical spaces bringing women together in community with shared intention and purpose. Creating words and sacred artefacts in collaboration with our ancestors and Mother Earth.
I believe we need to tell our stories, create our own wild archives – because if we don’t tell them, who else will?
My work stands on the shoulders of many incredible scholars, mentors, teachers, writers and my ancestors – to whom I am eternally grateful.*
A little bit more about me…
From being born and raised in Sheffield to Punjabi/Sikh working class migrant parents to leaving school at 16 years old with 3 o-levels and being told I could never be a writer – to severe burnout, grief, loss and chronic illnesses – I reconnected with the power of words and creative arts in my late forties as an act of radical healing, as a way to write myself back home, transform my life, and to learn to live well within my limitations.
This journey led to studying for an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (Metanoia Institute) after a twenty year career as a Social Worker. My 2022 debut poetry collection (un)interrupted tongues explored this journey towards liberation and healing, exploring intersections of race, creativity and nature. Since then my work has been shortlisted for Wasafiri New Writing prize, Working Class Nature Writing prize, published in Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, awarded Developing Your Creative Practice grant (Arts Council) and featured in exhibitions.
After experiencing a traumatic brain injury in 2022, and struggling to read or write consistently, I embraced mixed-media arts including slow-stitched ancestral scroll-making and book-making arts. These practices have been integral to my healing journey and I love sharing them with others.
Nature and the outdoors continue to be a huge part of my journey and reflected in all my work. I’m most often found on my tiny allottment or roaming through the woods – pen in hand – creating my latest archive.
Explore my recent projects here.
Explore my gallery of happenings here.
Finally, nothing gives me greater joy than hearing other folks read their words at workshops, share their creativity or sharing how creativity has made a difference to their lives. This is heart work and I’m blessed to do it!
* I’ll be adding the names of those who’ve inspired me soon!
“Working with and alongside Dal feels like the comforting embrace of a familial hug - I don't know how else to describe it. In her writing workshops, she both holds you and sets you free, to explore your craft in a space where it is supported and celebrated. Our True Nature really is the safe space I have been looking for as a woman of colour and a writer for so long and I'm so grateful to have found it!”
Evie Muir, Radical Rest, founder of Peaks of Colour.
