Tom Newlands has been our 2024 Writer In Residence at Bethlem Gallery. Tom is a multiply neurodivergent Scottish author. He is the winner of a London Writers Award and a Creative Future Writers’ Award. In 2021 he was selected for New Writing North’s ‘A Writing Chance,’ which aimed to showcase the most talented writers in the UK from under-represented backgrounds. His debut novel, Only Here, Only Now was a Guardian Book of the Day and is forthcoming in the USA, Netherlands and France.
Tom’s residency is in partnership and hosted by Bethlem Gallery. Established in 1997, the gallery provides a professional space for high-quality artwork and fosters a supportive artist-focused environment. Bethlem Gallery’s vision is an equitable society where art and mental health are a valued part of every day, and works with artists to lead change in health and society.
The Bethlem Gallery is a small art gallery within the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, which shares a building with the Bethlem Museum of the Mind. The gallery’s role is to support and exhibit works by current or former patients of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, as well as offering classes and workshops of all kinds open to members of the general public.
I was a writer in residence at Bethlem between January and October 2024. I feel proud to have been welcomed into such an inspiring and inclusive space, and to have had an opportunity to read the work of some incredible writers there. I was not surprised by the talent of the members at the Bethlem writers group, but I was taken aback by their collective spirit, and excited by their commitment to attending regularly and pushing themselves as they explored their own creative visions. The gallery at Bethlem has an open door and a revolving cast of artists and writers from all backgrounds, and at all levels of experience, creating a self-sustaining atmosphere of experimentation and creativity. I learned by the end of day one that there was incredible imaginative power at work here in these few small rooms!
During my residency I delivered six writing workshops and spent additional time engaging with visitors and writing on site, working on my second novel. In the workshops I ran we looked at ways we can prompt ourselves with everyday objects when faced with the dreaded blank page, techniques for engaging all our senses with the written word, and spoke about ways we can present ourselves and our work, and begin to take ourselves more seriously as writers. Exploring new techniques and subject matter is always a thrilling experience, but there was something extra special in seeing people build relationships as they worked. The writing we made and then shared over tea and biscuits was raw, hilarious, beautiful and moving. I also delivered two lyric writing workshops and became involved in the making of a record, spoke about my experience as a neurodivergent writer to the Bethlem Artist Collective, and even ended up helping hang some pictures in the gallery!
I engaged with many of the writers beyond the workshops, as well as outside of the gallery environment, and one of the real pleasures of my time there was hearing individual stories and learning how the area, and the hospital in particular, had shaped and inspired the visitors there in different ways. It has been such a privilege to be able to make a small contribution towards the development of local writers, and to see some of the writers from Bethlem entering their work in competitions for the first time, and progress their own practice using strategies discussed in our workshops. The team at Bethlem gave me such a warm welcome, and I learned a tremendous amount from the staff and the visitors, as well as finding the time and space needed to work on my own projects. I have come away having made many new friends.
