CHILDREN in Wiveliscombe are gaining the “tools to cope” through creative workshops led by local author Emma Bettridge.
Emma, part-time employee at Wiveliscombe’s Chocolate Books, works with young children from the age of four to explore storytelling both in the town’s library and out in the great outdoors as part of her project Stories in the Wilds.
The author, who wrote the childrens and young adult novels Goodbye Hobbs and The Ranch at the End of the World, aims to provide children with a creative outlet and is driven by a desire to provide space where children can harness the “tools to cope” with their emotions.
“I think I write every day because I need to, because it makes me feel calmer. And I think if we can instil that in, certainly small children, it has the potential to be hugely transformative,” she said.
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Before Christmas, Emma and owner of the recently opened Chocolate Books, Ally Kennen, challenged themselves to write a short children’s Christmas story in just one week which resulted in the production of Emma’s story The Christ Mouse Ghost.
Born and bred in Taunton, the now Wiveliscombe resident provides regular workshops in the town’s community library, most recently utilising her new tale to encourage local children to design the Christmas illustrations and create their own festive stories.
These recent sessions were entirely inspired by Emma’s work with Stories in the Wilds, she says, providing creative writing workshops in nature for children of all ages with the help of her dog Nell.
Travelling along a woodland path, the workshop participants hold a notepad and Dictaphone in hand to capture every thought and feeling, emboldened, Emma says, by Nell.
She said: “It’s really important to allow children to feel valid and to take ownership over their own stuff.
“The byproduct of generating your own little nugget of art is that it gives you the tools to cope with all the things around it.
“And I think, especially if phones are as glued to our hands as we know they are, it’s essential for kids to get outside and create.”