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Inside is a book that lives and breathes in its confinement.
It places a brief account of the patients of a hospital assessment ward (catering to those in the process of being diagnosed with dementia) in contrast to the inmates of a broad spectrum of prisons.
Holding these strands together is the voice of a single poet who doesn¿t hold back from telling it as it is.
In sharply observed and pointed language, the whole carries a message for politicians and the public alike.
About the author
For the first thirty years of his working life, John Killick taught in schools, colleges, adult education and prisons. He was also founding secretary of the National Association of Writers in Education, and for ten years, ran a small press which published sixty titles.For the past thirty years, John has worked as a writer with people with dementia. He has edited seven books of their poems and published eight books on communication and creativity, including collaborations with Kate Allan, Anne Basting and Claire Craig. His book, The Story of Dementia, was launched at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2017, and so was his autobiographical prose book Onlyness in 2019.For six years, he was a Research Fellow in Communication Through the Arts at the Dementia Services Development Centre, University of Stirling. He was subsequently Poet Mentor at the Courtyard Centre for the Arts in Hereford and Writer in Residence for Alzheimer Scotland.More recently, he has been working on an anthology, Near Nature, featuring the best 50 poems by people with dementia - to be published by Lab4Living at the University of Sheffield Hallam this Autumn - and a book with psychologist Kate Allan, Afraid of Dementia?
