Hi there, I'm Amanda — a writer, writing mentor, and the founder of The Mindful Writer, which is where I weave mindfulness and contemplative practice into the heart of creative writing. For fifteen years I've been teaching creative writing, and for the last three I've been deepening that into something harder to name but more impactful: helping writers meet the inner landscape the page asks us to inhabit — the fears, the self-doubt, the stories we tell ourselves — and the transformation that becomes possible when we meet all of it with presence and compassion. When we go deeper into why we write and connect with ourselves and others more deeply.

In March 2026, I was awarded a 75% scholarship to one of the most rigorous mindfulness teacher training programmes in the world. But to understand why that moment means so much, I need to tell you about the year before.

A very difficult year

In March 2025, my husband John and I found ourselves homeless.

A work-for-accommodation arrangement we'd moved into turned out to be uninhabitable, and the workload nothing like what had been agreed. For five months we lived between cheap Airbnbs, the homes of friends and family, a holiday cottage that a wonderfully generous student of mine arranged for us, and — more than once — the back of our van.

Through all of it, I kept teaching. I kept showing up for the community of writers I've built. I kept writing, mentoring, and holding space for others even when we had nowhere certain to call home ourselves.

That experience changed me. It stripped away what isn't essential and clarified, completely, what is.

The turning point

In the week of 9–15 March 2026, I found out that the temporary accommodation I'd moved into in August 2025 is now my home until August 2028. Within hours of learning that, I submitted a scholarship application for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP), led by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield — two of the most respected mindfulness teachers alive.

Less than an hour after I submitted, I was awarded the scholarship.

The programme runs from February 2027 to July 2028 — almost exactly the window of stability I now have. It felt like something more than coincidence.

Why this training

The MMTCP is an eighteen-month immersive training designed to produce teachers capable of meeting real suffering with real wisdom. I hold a Diploma in Meditation Teaching, a Diploma in Therapeutic Journaling, and completed mindfulness mentoring training with Tara and Jack through a previous scholarship. I teach through the Year of Mindful Writing, Writing the Bardo, and Mindful Mentoring for Writers, and I'm a teacher on the Insight Timer meditation app. I also run WestWord literary magazine, which I founded in 2022.

The writers I work with are not just learning to write better. They are learning to know themselves more honestly, to meet their inner critic with compassion, to use the page as a place of genuine healing and discovery. I hear this regularly from the people I work with. When I complete this certification, everything I offer will be shaped and deepened by what I learn — and it will allow me to extend that work beyond the writing community to people who really need mindfulness in their lives, but perhaps don't yet know it's for them.

In their welcome letter to the course, Tara and Jack wrote: "Our world is calling for what you will cultivate here: the capacity to bring mindfulness and compassion alive, and practices that heal both individuals and the communities around us."

I believe this is the path I'm here to walk — and that everything in my life has been preparing me for it.

What I need

The 75% scholarship is extraordinary and I'm deeply grateful for it. But the remaining costs are significant:

My goal is £5,000 in total.

What your support makes possible

Everything I already do will be shaped and deepened by what I learn and embody through this training. And it will enable me to extend my offerings beyond the writing community to those who really need mindfulness in their lives but perhaps feel it's not for them. I truly believe it's for everybody.

This is a commitment to showing up as fully as I possibly can for the people I serve, and for a world that genuinely needs people willing to do this kind of deep and dedicated work.

If you've been touched by my teaching, my writing, or The Mindful Writer — or if you simply believe the world needs more people willing to do this kind of work — I would be so grateful for your support.

And if donating isn't possible right now, sharing this page is an equally meaningful gift. Every share reaches someone who might be moved to give.

With love,

Amanda