Writers Salon | A letter to the monster with Lo Cleary

A letter to the monster: disability, poetry and comics

Come and join Connect through Creativity’s CRIPtic x London Writers Centre with Lo Cleary and sign up for the Salon open mic if you’d like to share your work.

The Salon is for d/Deaf and disabled creatives – wether you are new to writing or are a seasoned and published poet, gain inspiration and start a new ongoing adventure in creativity.

Read your work at the sharing spot

There are five sharing spot slots available at the Salon and if you’d like to share your work please complete the following form by 11am on Friday 10 July 2026: https://forms.gle/RPJrQepMK3U7Xw5i7

You’ll be asked to provide your contact details and a short bio and the reading you will be doing which should be no longer than 5 minutes. This is so we can send the work to our BSL interpreters in advance of the session. You can submit these in written English, video or audio file format.

About the workshop

This workshop will be focusing on writing prose and pairing it with image – standardly called comics but the need to draw is not required. In this workshop we will focus on combining a strong narrative voice with sequential imagery (images in a certain order). Using whatever medium you find comfortable, whether drawing, collage or photography , this workshop hopes to use visual story telling to inspire or support your prose. This is an introductory session to experimental comics and combining of mediums, introducing new ways of illustrating lived experience.

Good for those who wish to expand pre-existing works, explore experimental ways to play with tone and visual metaphor. Explore the value of incorporating cartooning into your existing practice. A workshop for those new to writing or visualising, combining two mediums. Open to all experience levels and those who desire to put experience down on paper.

About Lo
Lo Cleary is a narrative-based illustrator and printmaker making work on the lived experience of chronic illness, the overarching theme of their practice is in disability theory. Queer and disabled, they work as a core organiser with Rotten crip collective, bringing a physical creative meeting space for disabled, neurodiverse, crippled, D/deaf and mad people.

Using symbolism, world building, and character design as tools to make visible the unseen elements of illness. Looking at chronic pain, illness and how it changes a person’s temporality, illustrating through image and prose crip landscapes built in time. They have two self published works out ; “I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE AS A COMET: on crip time, disability justice and “the life of a shooting star”; an illustrated dissertation, and “THE ANGEL FILES” looking at visual work and storytelling as a way of exploring the different perspectives of “psychotic” experiences. They work with themes of obsession, pain and fantasy, with emphasis on world building and character creation.

Access Information

• Auto-captions
• Self Descriptions
• BSL Interpretation
• Comfort Breaks

About CRIPtic Arts

CRIPtic Arts exists to ignite disabled excellence across the arts. We provide active disabled leadership which advances world-class arts work with disabled creatives. From high-quality community activities to showcasing breakthrough performers; we’re blazing a revolution in accessibility.

About London Writers Centre

We are London’s literature development agency. We are here to help London’s underrepresented writers get their work into the world and connect communities to words and stories.

With thanks to the City Bridge Foundation for supporting the CRIPtic x London Writers Centre Salon and Connect through Connectivity.