The Team
The Team
Caroline and Birgit met on the MA in creative writing at Nottingham Trent University.
Birgit Friedrich, originally from Germany, found her home in Nottingham in her thirties and has never looked back. Nottingham also serves as the setting for her novel, What I Never Knew About Love. She hopes to finish the final edits of her novel soon so that she can return to writing poetry. Some of her poems can be found in the anthology Settlement Status and Poetry for All, published by Civic Leicester in 2021. After completing her MA in Creative Writing at NTU, she co- founded Dandelion Poetry. When she's not writing or reading, you can find Birgit at poetry events and pubs, enjoying a glass of wine or two with her incredible friends.
Birgit Friedrich is passionate about nurturing creativity and has had the privilege of leading engaging workshops on poetry and fiction for the Writing, Reading, and Pleasure (WRAP) program at Nottingham Trent University. These sessions provide students with an inspiring space to explore their literary talents and develop their unique voices. Beyond workshops, Birgit actively participates in Dandelions Poetry and a critique group for poetry, offering constructive feedback and fostering a supportive community of writers. With over ten years of experience teaching German and literary translation at the University of Nottingham, she blends linguistic expertise with creative flair. Holding an MA in Creative Writing with distinction from Nottingham Trent University, Birgit is also a published author, with her work featured in various anthologies.
After working as a counsellor and trainer for the NHS and other organisations for many years, Caroline Stancer gained a Creative Writing MA from Nottingham Trent University in 2020, and a place on Writing East Midlands’ Mentoring Scheme with Helen Mort later that year. She won the Stonewood Regional Writer's prize in 2017, was longlisted for Primers 2020, the National Poetry Competition 2021, commended in Verve Festival’s Competition 2023 and shortlisted for Primers 2023. She has been published in Otherwise Engaged, Litter Magazine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, the Nine Arches Press Blog, Like Flyering for the Revolution: The VERVE Anthology of Protest Poems and Anthropocene. She has performed at Verve Poetry Festival, in a live stream for UNESCO City of Literature for World Poetry Day, at Nottingham Poetry Festival, for 16 days of Activism against Gender based violence at Manchester Metropolitan University, and many other events. She is studying for a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University and recently completed a novel. Caroline co-runs the poetry collective and podcast, Dandelions Poetry. Her poetry pamphlet Full Body Reclaim is published with Five Leaves Publications.
Caroline is an experienced group facilitator and creative writing workshop leader. She has led workshops for: Nottingham Poetry Festival, including a Word Walk in Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, and a Poetry and Mindfulness workshop; for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence at Manchester Metropolitan University; for Notts Book Arts Festival at Arnold Library; in a hospice with families after bereavement and many others. She is also a shadow writer on the Beyond the Spectrum Project https://beyondthespectrum.uk/ for autistic writers. Caroline previously managed a counselling training department and taught counselling for a number of years.
We loved taking the journey into writing together, discovering that we had so much to say and learning how to hone and develop our voices.
The community on the MA meant a lot to us and we both felt strongly that we wanted to create such communities more widely.
We have worked together in a critique group for the past six years, which has offered us enormous mutual support and learning. The idea for Dandelions grew out of these experiences of community.
We decided to try to share out love of poetry and writing with a wider group, and create a community with lower barriers to join in and feel a part of.
We are enthusiastic, open minded, interested in people and interested in ideas.
We have both come to writing later in life and both still often struggle with imposter syndrome. What am I doing here, and am I really allowed in?
We are also both interested in the role of outsiders and the voices of those who are often excluded. Our interests include, feminism, migration, cross cultural writing, writing about trauma and mental health, masculinity and translation.