---
title: "Workshops and mentoring"
url: "https://ruthocallaghan.com/workshops"
updated: 2026-10-12
description: "Ruth O'Callaghan mentors poets towards a first or a new collection, and leads small workshops in London and at festivals."
---

# Workshops and mentoring

Ruth works with experienced poets who want to see their poems afresh, and with newer poets working towards a first collection.

## Mentoring

Ruth works one to one, reading a poet's poems closely and helping to shape them towards a collection. She brings years of judging to it: in 2019 she judged the Kent and Sussex Poetry Society's Open Competition, which drew 1,716 poems.

## Workshops

Her London workshops take five poets at most, so every poem gets time. She also leads workshops at festivals. At the Oxford Literary Festival she led "Becoming" in 2019 and "A Body of Work" in March 2026, each followed by a reading from the poets who took part. She has run residential writing weeks in Lisbon.

## Ask about a workshop or mentoring

Say a little about your writing and what you would like to work on.

[Write to Ruth](/contact)