Rachel Knightley talks to award winning author, Anthony McGowan.

Rachel Knightley talks to BAFTA-winning writer, director and producer, Dan Berlinka.

In memory of John J Johnson, 1965-2025

This is not the September newsletter I expected to write. 

On Thursday morning, my friend John J Johnson died after a short illness. John was an Egyptologist, lecturer, world-expert on Doctor Who and, with his husband John Cunningham, one half of the first same-sex couple to marry in a church. (There is plenty more to discover about John, and here would be a good place to start.) 

I wish our friendship had been longer than the less-than-two years it was, but what I knew immediately and will always treasure was here was a person who truly appreciated and celebrated all his life contained. He possessed that best of qualities: genuine, appreciative, knowledgable enthusiasm. He also possessed that equally important of gifts: the articulacy to communicate, connect and therefore spread that enthusiasm. 

I’m not an Egyptologist, and my Doctor Who knowledge is comparatively humble, but John’s example could not be more relevant to me professionally as well as personally. As writers, we know characterisation is communicated not through telling the reader what someone’s like, but showing their behaviour, facial expression, tone of voice, actions, gestures and choice of words. Whether you encountered John in a university situation or as a blu-ray commentator, he was the ideal ambassador because he was celebrating the material: the message, not just the messenger. As writers, as coaches, as coaching clients, we discover the best of ourselves when we wear our knowledge lightly, because we know the magic happens not in expert mindset but beginner mindset; dwelling not in knowledge but in curiosity and possibility. Being truly present in whatever room we find ourselves, because there’s always some new joy to discover. 

John, I’m so glad I knew you. 

This month:

Focus and Flow: Creative Confidence Tools for Life
Friday 5 September, 12.30pm-1.30pm on Zoom
A practical, thoughtful space to discover what you want your future to look like and identify the gentle, authentic steps from where we are to where we choose to be. 
Book here

Writers’ Gym Writing Workout
Tuesday 9 September, 6pm-7.30pm on Zoom
The perfect place to hone your writing. A creative writing warm-up, followed by exercises, tips and techniques for making the most of feedback on creative work. Click here.

Coffee & Creativity
Central London venue, Friday 26 September, 10am-11.30am 
Whatever you want to create on the page or in the world, this creative confidence building workshop will give you what you need to enjoy the journey and relish the destination. Turn curiosity into creativity, whether you’re building creative and professional writing skills, or writing a new chapter in your professional and personal life story. Bring a notebook and an open mind. Places strictly limited: email info@rachelknightley.com

The Writers’ Gym Podcast
Every Monday on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts
Creative confidence workouts for art and life with authors including World Fantasy Award winner Priya Sharma, multiple-BAFTA-winning screenwriter Dan Berlinka and Carnegie winning novelist Anthony McGowan. Listen here

– Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art –www.rachelknightley.com

Writers’ Gym Podcast: Rachel Knightley talks to British Fantasy, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Award winner, Priya Sharma.

Writers’ Gym Podcast: Rachel Knightley talks to Tiny Pieces of Skill author and 2016 Lambda winner Roz Kaveney.

August news, recordings and workshops

While Writers’ Gym weekly member sessions continue over the summer, I’m making a point of being as gloriously inactive as I can. ‘Inactive’ in the productivity sense, that is. Meaning I’m awarding myself adult-life brownie points for how long I can spend with whatever I’m in the mood for reading – or writing – or strumming – or repotting – and making a note on my to-do list to quieten my brain instead of leaping off the sofa to feed my ‘need’ to be productive.

Because I don’t need to be productive. I don’t need to make the ‘most’ of my holiday time. I need to be rested. I need to the do the things that are why we do the productivity.

So, here are a few things to explore while I’m not ‘here’ this month:

The Writers’ Gym podcast

Yesterday’s episode features novelist, academic and instant Sunday Times Bestselling author Sarah Brooks. We’re three weeks into the current series so if you’re not already following, there are many more author interviews to enjoy on Spotify, Apple, Podbean or wherever you get your podcasts:

Creative Confidence

Creative confidence is about narrowing the gap between who we are on the inside and who we are in our careers and personal lives. It celebrates what’s already been achieved, recognises what we’re growing beyond, and asks what we want to create next. Join me for my one and only non-Writers’ Gym workshop of August: final places available here.

Guest Blogging for Little Lies

Really, really honoured to be asked to guest-blog for my favourite brand’s tenth birthday.

Coaching is a space to think and feel out loud. It holds a mirror up to who we are and who we choose to become, letting us see what the life we want looks like and, most of all, our power to make it our reality. It’s about showing up as our full selves – in life, in work and in art. So, for me, was Little Lies: a clothing brand inspired by the music I love, which I discovered through my best friend during lockdown. Little Lies has always been a space for dreaming, which is where our authentic goals are formed, and the business Jade and Stuart created from dreams I share has been an example to me of creativity, collaboration and celebration: Read my first post (of three) for Little Lies here.

Curious about coaching for professional or personal life? Click here
Or visit the Writers’ Gym

Guest Passes for the Writers’ Gym this month:

Writing Workout and Feedback | 6.30-8pm Tuesday 5 August
This friendly group workshop is the perfect place to hone your writing – and how to get the best out of feedback. Click here

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm, Wednesday 27 August
Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here

– and all things Rachel Knightley Coaching in July 2025

My clearest memory of Brownies is receiving my Highway Badge. The three Journey badges – Footpath, Roadway, Highway – meant filling each paving stone in the guide’s road-shaped diagram, colouring in each stone to represent things you achieved along the way (I forget what literally any of them were), until you reached the paving stone closest to the horizon. 

The memory starts with descending horror. Ahead of my final Brownies meeting, I realised I hadn’t finished my Highway and it was tonight or never. I filled in what was needed (again, zero memory of what that was) and, that night, shook hands with Brown Owl (not an obscure LSD reference: the leaders were named after various woodland animals), giving and receiving the Brownie salute before she gave me the badge I (or probably my mother; I had no interest in the sewing badge) would sew on my Brownie sash. 

But the reason I think this memory stuck so clearly is not just because it was my last badge, last meeting or last salute. It was the first time I realised life wasn’t going to be about people reliably reminding, reassuring or telling you what you were supposed to do. Still less rewarding what you did or punishing you didn’t. The rewards and punishments of adult life would be internal, for what we did and – perhaps more unnervingly – what we didn’t do.

This highlights a reason I think coaching answers so much in so many of us. In coaching, the client sets the objectives. There may not be badges to sew on, but there are emotional and practical goals which are chosen as a result of an authentic understanding of who that individual is and how they want to experience being themselves in personal and professional life. It’s accountability and support, from a trusted thinking partner. It keeps you committing to being as you as you can be.

Adult life doesn’t give out badges to recognise achievement (though, as I write this, perhaps I’m explaining to myself clearer than ever before why many of my friends love tattoos so much). That’s probably a good thing. Thought habits are about committing to maintenance, not putting trophies on a shelf. That said, here are two suggestions of adult Brownie badges I’ve recognised and mentally awarded myself recently:

These two are just suggestions – I’d love to know what you’d choose for yours?

The Boundaries Badge
The Brownie/adult recognises that being a good relative/friend/colleague/partner/etc does not mean – and never has meant – being available twenty-four hours a day, or saying yes to everything that’s asked. They acknowledge it is for them and not the world to state (and repeat, and repeat, and repeat without diluting) their boundary, what they will and will not do/be/offer.

The Empowerer Badge
The Brownie/adult commits to replacing jumping in to ‘rescue’ their relative/friend/colleague/partner/etc with how they might empower them. By changing status from rescuer to empowerer, they change the other’s status from helplessness to growth. Both are then in a stronger position next time, plus the rescuer-turned-empowerer’s self-esteem grows through no longer needing to be needed, but knowing they are truly wanted. 

The Responder Badge
Instead of firing back a text message, email or remark that relieves their feelings for a moment but heightens the conflict (and, with it, their feelings) in the long-run, the Brownie/adult listens to their instant reaction, asks what fears and wishes it’s based on, and then imagines what the tester/emailer does and doesn’t see about how they perceive the situation. This badge is one for writers in particular – when we know every character is just as real as we are, we can see more clearly beyond what we fear people think of us to what their own fears might be about themselves. Resulting The Compassion Badge…

Curious about coaching for professional or personal life? Click here
Or visit the Writers’ Gym

This month:

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm, Wednesday 2 July
Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here.

Creative Confidence at Olympic Studios, 10am-11.30am Friday 4 July
The greatest breakthroughs in our professional and personal lives come not from finding the right answers – but asking the right questions. Explore the joys of creative confidence, and the tools it offers to help us turn apparently insolvable problems into positive, authentic choices. Click here.

Powerful Fiction and Memoir (Week 3 of 4) | Olympic Studios | Saturday 5 July
Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.comBook here.

Writing Workout and Feedback | 6-7.30pm, Tuesday 15 July
This friendly group workshop is the perfect place to hone your writing – and how to get the best out of feedback. Click here.

The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com

I am a professional writer, a qualified writing and confidence coach, and an absolute beginner guitarist. The guitar and I have shared a stop-start relationship (almost exclusively stop) since I was about seven. This year is the first time in my life I understood why.

With my new teacher, I’ve started having fun.

There’s a lot of reasons for that, the main ones being that he recognises and articulates what I find hard, notices and acknowledges big and small improvements alike, praises both, and praises effort when achievement (small or big) isn’t there yet. He knows, and as a result I know, it being hard is absolutely okay. That there’s nothing more honourable about finding something easy all the time than there is about daring to keep showing up and working for it. I feel seen, I feel valued. I love the lessons and I love how proud of myself I feel. How powerful. And, as a result, learning gets easier and faster.

Don’t get me wrong, the feelings of frustration – Other people are so much better at this – Why does this have to be so hard? – What’s wrong with me? – haven’t gone away. But I love the environment. It feels safe. And celebratory. And I love the reason I’m doing it. I love the songs we’re sharing; both the ones I can (slightly, gradually, nearly) play and the ones I might one day but can’t right now. I love talking about music and celebrating music. I love realising that just as I’d put music on my own pedestal, other people might put the kind of writing and speaking that’s my ‘normal’ on theirs.

I thought about this yesterday during a chance conversation with a very lovely person I met at Olympic Studios where I’m coaching Powerful Fiction and Memoir on Saturday afternoons. When that person heard I coached public speaking, and that speaking in public is an enjoyable part of my job, they asked – in a manner equally impressed and horrified – HOW?

Longtime readers – and everyone having confidence coaching with me – will know when I was in my early twenties I had to go onstage at a primary school to talk about the drama club I was starting. A sea of identical tiny, poker-faced children stared unblinking (okay, okay, some of them probably blinked but I swear that was the extent of the humanity I saw in that moment) up at me as I walked onstage, announced by the headteacher but feeling less like one of the adults dotted around the edges of the ocean of expressionless faces and more like the child I’d been last time I was in such a hall. But in the few steps from the side of the hall to the centre of the stage, here is the thought that landed in my head at the centre of all the imposter syndrome: ‘Just because I feel like this, doesn’t mean that’s what they see.’ Indeed, just because it was how I felt about my own inadequacy, didn’t mean I was right.

Welcome the audience to your space

I made eye contact with every face I possibly could. I thought about everything I’d ever loved about drama, every mental and emotional (as well as vocational) door it had ever opened for me. I felt the smile that rose to my face as a result of the thoughts inside my head, and I didn’t get in its way. And then I said, to every one of those faces, ‘Who knows what drama is?’

Not the most original line in the world. But a true one. An honest question. And my face showed I meant it. And every hand went up as every face lit with understanding and interest. And my talk to that audience became a talk, in the true sense. An offering and a receiving. We connected. I ran the drama club in that school for about a decade before I moved on to what I’m doing now. 

Talking to our audience needs one thing and one thing only. It’s not perfect scripting. It’s not perfect confidence. It’s the knowledge everyone out there is as scared as we could possibly be on one of our worst days. Everyone else out might look perfectly confident, a proper adult etc, but if we’re looking at the world like that there’s a damn good chance they are too. And our opportunity is to welcome that audience into our physical and mental space. Just as we’d offer them a cup of tea in our living room, it’s not about the exact word or gesture we choose. It’s deeper and truer than that. It’s the message that comes through us, not ourselves as the messenger. So all we need is to connect, and that takes six words: welcome the audience to your space.

‘Love is the answer,’ said John Lennon (who I’ve been playing recently, and recognisably). ‘All you need is love,’ said the Beatles (ditto). Like anything short (and I speak as a five footer), it’s easier to overlook or oversimplify how simple the truth sometimes is. If you want to do something well, if you want it to feel natural and easy, find a place of truth and start from that truth. I love drama and I wanted drama club to do for those children what drama had done for me. I love music and I’m prepared to keep showing up for it. If you’re speaking to an audience, then either they themselves, or your subject, or probably both, are there because of a shared love: shared experience, shared values, or other shared intention. Be there for that love. The more you accept that, the more calmly and involvedly you’ll move through the material. Like asking friends or family who wants tea and who wants coffee, it’s not about the exact words. It’s about what’s underneath them. We don’t need you to be perfect. We want you to be you. Welcome the audience to your space, as only you can.

Explore coaching for business and personal life here.

Explore coaching for under-eighteens here.

Explore the Writers’ Gym here.

In-person this week…

Fiction and Memoir Writing | Riverside Studios | 6.30-8pm, Tuesday 24 June
All the inspiration, support and techniques you need to weave initial ideas into fully realised stories. Click here.

Write, Sip, Connect | Century Club | 7pm-8.30pm, Friday 27 June
An evening workshop with cocktails, where creativity meets confidence in a unique blend of writing exercises, discussion, and networking. Whether you’re an experienced writer, just starting out, or simply curious about the craft, this event is designed to boost your word count, confidence, and connections—all in a relaxed and welcoming space. Book here.

Powerful Fiction and Memoir (Week 2 of 4) | Olympic Studios | 28 June
Truthful, powerful writing goes so much deeper than whether or not a story ‘really happened’. My four sessions at the legendary Olympic Studios explore the tools and techniques of powerful prose. Writers of all levels of experience will build creative confidence, explore and express their unique memory and imagination and create truthful, compelling memoir and fiction. If you are a member of Olympic Studios or the Writers’ Gym and do not have your discount code, please email info@rachelknightley.comBook here.

Online this week…

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm, Wednesday 2 July
Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here.

Writing Workout and Feedback | 6-7.30pm, Tuesday 15 July
This friendly group workshop is the perfect place to hone your writing – and how to get the best out of feedback. Click here.

The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art: www.rachelknightley.com

You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership: thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com