mel parks
East Grinstead
My Work Research Researching the stories we tell ourselves and other people;
both historically and the present day – I delve into stories in academic
research, the media, memoir, diaries, fiction, art as well as myths and fairy
tales to understand the dominant narrative. Write Writing my own stories. I
don’t ask other people to do anything I haven’t done myself, so my research
includes autoethnographic or creative work of my own. Writing myself into my
work is integral to understanding and shifting the narrative. I also work in
creative collaboration with others. Facilitate Helping others tell their
stories. My aim is to encourage diversity, complexity and specificity. There are
no quick fixes, tidy endings, or moments of complete resolution in life and the
stories we write and create will ideally represent this. Stories don’t need to
be straightforward narratives, so I offer tips and techniques and make space for
blends of different types of writing (eg poetry, lyric essays, journals or
reflective writing) or other understandings of stories such as craft or visual
representations. Curate Sharing stories. I aim to do all that I can to help
little-heard stories shake the hearts and change the minds of policy makers and
other people who keep the dominant narrative going. I do this by commissioning,
editing and publishing stories of community and co-production on Ideas Hub;
organising events; speaking at conferences; creating online archives; and
writing and publishing articles about my work.
