About Kate

I’m Kate and for over 20 years I worked in the publishing industry in London for leading commercial houses. I worked my way up from Editorial Assistant to Publisher. After I had my third child, I transitioned to consultant ‘Book Fixer’, commissioning, mentoring new writers, ghostwriting and coaching commisioned authors through creative blocks to deliver on time - while still juggling the schoolrun and playdates (I know how hard it is to fit a writing habit into a busy life). I have always written myself and have enjoyed writing lifestyle articles for magazines such as Red Magazine and The Scots Magazine. I write with a poetry group in Oxfordshire and am starting to get my poetry published in magazines such as Alchemy Spoon and Spelt Magazine. I am halfway through the first draft of an epic novel (and finding blocks of my own!). I also organize live spoken word events, in Oxford and beyond.

During lockdown, I ran a series of community poem-making events online which quickly spread to many more creative or reflective writing groups and I trained in Reflective and Therapeutic Writing Practices.

Writing is my thing; working with people to help them find their own voice is what I know.

So, out of all this experience and connection grew The Writing Well. And we continue to flourish with the help of other writers and facilitators, broadening our offerings.

A new novel is brewing

Watch this space…

Kate’s poetry

In 2017, Kate was chosen as one of the St Magnus Music Festival poets in Orkney. She is currently working toward her first pamphlet and is a member of the poetry group Sevenish. Kate attends and runs various open mic events in and around Oxford. From 2021 to 2022, she worked in collaboration with Towpath Productions to produce 'Poetry Afloat,' poetry performances on a converted theatre boat.

Kate also organizes the Spoken Word tent at the Oxford Canal Festival. Her poems have been recently published in South Bank Poetry, Alchemy Spoon, and Spelt Magazine.

‘What a Performance’
© Kate Oldfield

A Dorset Tapestry

A wide March sky,
faintly skeined in cloud.
The needling promise
of green, framed in birdsong.

Sitting back on his boot-heels,
axe flat, billhook down,
he considers the heart of the hedge;
the warp and weft of his morning.

Blackthorn tucked and send,
steeped, enmeshed.
Pleachers low, hazel-bound.
Ditch redug, damp, and black.

Beyond this hedge another
hems centuries of sheep.
Tended by father and grandfather,
flocking their timeworn yarns with care.

Suspended,
the buzzard, making time her own,
lifts and glints above the teeming threads,
until the precipitous moment,

and flight becomes
fall.

Published by Spelt Magazine

Credo

I believe in that line that lingers
beneath the title. Before the first word.
The space where meaning and potential mingle.

I trust in the metaphor, that lives on
long after the poet makes shape
out of stillness.

I have faith in the new image
that catches the heart
to resolve something unsaid.

To lean in to the poetry
is to know there is no cure
for this love. Let words be my witness.

I believe in the white silence
rising beyond the last inked point,
where everything waits,

and wants to be understood.

Published by The Alchemy Spoon Magazine

The Thames at Battersea: Nocturne in Blue and Gold

We walk the river west
to Battersea.
Cross Whistler’s tonal Thames,
bathed in evening haze.

How you love the light
and shade of London.
The ebb and flow.

The quiet spaces.

We find jazz in the park.
A clarinet rises,
shimmies,

floats.

We turn our backs,
the better to feel
the blue notes.

And all suffuse:

air,
colour,
water.

Published by South Bank Poetry

Kate’s YouTube channel

Watch this space - more vids coming soon!

Thanks for watching.