Julia Darling

Julia Darling died at the height of her writing career, with a new book, The Poetry Cure, about to be published, a collection of her plays for radio and television underway, a play, Manifesto for a New City, touring the North East and with a visua art/poetry project, First Aid Kit for the Mind, a collaboration with the artist Emma Holliday, in production.

Julia had been using her personal experience of cancer as her creative subject, especially in her poetry. She produced two life-enhancing collections of poems, Sudden Collapses in Public Places and Apology for Absence, in which she creatively responded to her life with cancer and suggested how poetry and humour could be used to combat both pain and suffering. She was also a fellow in writing and health at Newcastle University’s School of English, where she used her gifts to pioneer creative writing teaching within medical training and set up projects with hospitals and doctors.