Join Kate Fox (auDHD stand-up poet and performer) and Helen Kara (autistic creative writing scholar) for a course where neurodivergent-friendly rules apply.
Here, stimming is fine and masking is optional. Taking breaks when you need them is encouraged. Working at 2 am because that’s when your brain comes alive? We get it, because we know what it’s like to operate differently. Whether you’re wrestling with a specific project or exploring new forms, we’ll meet you where you are.
Helen brings expertise in prose writing, narrative craft, and academic publishing. Kate brings performance poetry, broadcast skills, and the art of making an audience lean in. Together, we’ve got multiple genres covered – and we understand that neurodivergent creativity doesn’t always fit in neat boxes.
Individual tutorials will be shaped around you: face-to-face, asynchronous voice notes, emails, walking and talking or a video call after the course – whatever helps you learn and create. We have built in flexibility because we know that energy and focus don’t always turn up on schedule. We understand sensory overwhelm, RSD, hyperfocus, and that brilliant ideas often arrive sideways. Maybe you write best in solitude or thrive in conversation. You might need structure or complete freedom. We will help you find the process that works for your brain. This is a space where fidgeting, pacing, or needing to step away isn’t a problem, it’s part of how we work. Where “too much” and “too intense” become “yes, and?”
Bring your obsessions, your unfinished projects, your wild ideas. Let’s make something extraordinary.
*Please use the expandable links below to reveal timings and further details of the course schedule.
Room with a valley view: £640
Rooms in this price band have a single or double bed, and most are on the first or ground floor. One room in this price band is in the attic but has a valley view.
Attic room without a valley view: £590
These rooms have low ceilings and extra stairs to climb.
Concessions: Room with a view: £448
Concessions: Room without a view: £413
As part of our effort to increase participation in the arts, we offer limited concessionary places at a 30% reduction. You can select this option at checkout if available.
Physical access at Lumb Bank:
The upper floor of the barn is accessible by lift, and the ground floor is level access or ramped. There is an accessible all-gender toilet on the ground floor. Lumb Bank’s main building is accessible for wheelchair users, but the access to the house itself is down a steep country lane, and the initial part of the driveway is bumpy and uneven. If you are coming on a course and require assistance to enter the building or are a wheelchair user please contact us on access@arvon.org or rozie.kelly@arvon.org so we can meet you on arrival and guide any vehicles in. If you need to park onsite please contact us to arrange this in advance (one space available per course).
Please see our access page for general access information for residential courses.
Our grants scheme may be able to cover a portion of your course fees. Disability costs and additional living/support costs are taken into account when considering your grant application. You may also be entitled to concession pricing on selected courses.
If you have any questions or concerns and want to chat to a member of staff prior to booking please contact us on access@arvon.org
The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre, Lumb Bank is an 18th-century millowner’s house in West Yorkshire, which once belonged to Ted Hughes. It’s set in 20 acres of steep woodland with breathtaking views to the valley below.
You’ll find many quiet places to write in the house and garden – and a well-stocked library. All rooms are single occupancy, and bathrooms are shared. The shared bathrooms are all-gender.
All your meals are provided, locally and sustainably sourced wherever possible. Help yourself to breakfast, our team will prepare lunch, and dinner is prepared in groups each evening using the delicious recipes and ingredients provided.
Explore the Pennine landscape of woods and rivers, weavers’ cottages, packhorse trails and ruins of old mills. It is half a mile from the historic village of Heptonstall and two miles from Hebden Bridge.
See here for more information on Lumb Bank.
Kate Fox
Helen Kara
