MARTIN O'CONNOR
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Writer in Residence: Children's Hospices Across Scotland (2016)


Scotsman Article: The Bigger Conversation Poem


Video: What We Talk About When We Talk About Death

martinspoken · The Journey

​Over the course of 2015/16 Martin visited Rachel House and Robin House Children’s Hospices in Kinross and Balloch, and collected recorded conversations with families and staff based on their personal experiences of caring for a child with a life-limiting condition. In that time Martin also helped to instigate the Hospice’s first Death Café for young people and their families moving into adult services, and delivered workshops on his experience within the hospices, including the Scottish Palliative Care Conference and the most recent NHS Conference; written about his experiences for the Scotsman newspaper and created rapid response poetry which has been shared and used by medical professionals.

The main bulk of the work created in the post was engaging young people, families and staff in talking about their experiences of the hospice, and covers the day-to-day lived experience as well as issues of death, dying and grief.

This collected material was used to create ​The Journey -  a sound walk for each hospice, and will inspire further playwriting and poetry work into 2017 including the rehearsed reading of A Little Life at the Tron Theatre's Mayfesto season in May - more info on the play here.

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