I N T R O D U C T I O N
Hi! Our names are Matt Maude and Susanna Davies-Crook. We're the founders and hosts of Write Club.
First of all, thank you for considering this proposal. Second Home is such an incredible space and we would be truly honoured to bring our participants into the magical world you've built for your community.
We're aware that any new potential partnership can incite both equal amounts of excitement and uncertainty. In everything we do, we try to limit the amount of work it takes for our host partners to work with us.
One of our core tenets of Write Club is to create and curate a safe and open space for anyone attending our sessions. One built on creating openness, acceptance and respect within those we work with and for. Above all else, building and sustaining those ingredients in everything we do is the most important thing we do at Write Club. Like you, we try to build a second home for those attending Write Club.
If we can answer any questions beyond what is included here, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Matt is available on matt@writeclublondon.com
Susanna is available at susanna@writeclublondon.com
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S O W H A T I S W R I T E C L U B ?
Working in partnership with arts organisations and private member spaces across London Write Club delivers a series of weekly sessions that invite industry-recognised, award-winning guest speakers to deliver informal talks and Q&As. Seated around a large table in which attendees and the guest speaker sit at the same level, the guest speaker is invited to share their origin story, anecdotal life experiences and professional workflows. Although lightly moderated with a couple of kickoff questions from us at the beginning of the session, the rest of the talk is entirely participant-led. Arranged as a peer-to-peer exchange, our constant aim is to close the gap between ambition and possibility; allowing participants to both interact with, and see themselves in the accessible story of the guest speaker.
No writing experience necessary is required to join any of our sessions. No manuscript is required. You don't have to be a writer to come to Write Club. You just have to want to write.
Write Club currently runs the writing development programmes for Soho House London, The Groucho Club, The House of Koko and Home House.
In addition to delivering these Write Club sessions, we also run a number of other monthly events across London:
- Body Doubling sessions where participants are invited to write alongside one another for a number of hours before coming together for lunch, dinner or drinks.
- Writing Salons where participants are invited to respond to a short writing exercise before being invited to read aloud pieces of their own work in front of the combined audience.
- In Nature Writing Group invitations where participants write in corners of nature across London before coming together for dinner and drinks at a local restaurant or pub.
F I L M :
Over the course of our five year long partnership at Soho House, we asked a number of their members to provide us with testimonials of their experience attending Write Club.
If you have five minutes available, we'd love for you to watch the film below.
It hopefully conveys much of what we feel Write Club is about.
A N E W H O M E
To date, Write Club has never been able to list a public calendar of our events.
Because we mostly work with private member venues, tickets that are made available for our sessions are often announced last minute. It means we have been unable to meet the demands of our 2,000 followers on our Instagram account, our 500+ members on our private Whatsapp group and the 1,500 previously attending participants on our mailing list.
For Autumn and Winter of 2026, we'd like to change that.
Over the next coming months our aim is to create a number of monthly events in a new venue to meet the growing demand of this interest. Increasing our Body Doubling sessions and Salon programme in a public setting.
We are hoping that Second Home might be our second home for this expanded cultural calendar.
"If you're looking for a place to write and join an open, inclusive community, Write Club is without a doubt the place to be"
W H Y S E C O N D H O M E ?
At Second Home you already have built an incredible community interested in creativity, ideas, culture and connection. We hope that Write Club adds even more to your audience. Space, time and an invitation to make something new.
The result isn't simply another workshop. It's the desire to find a new home for new words.
The proposed partnership would combine Second Home's physical environment and the creative community you've built with Write Club's established events programme, our guest network and our bespoke event format. Regular sessions where participants arrive with an empty page and leave with fresh ideas and new friends.
C U L T U R A L P R O G R A M M E
Our proposal is to host a programme of writing and reading events that brings many of Write Club’s existing formats into Second Home. A space already known for fostering creativity, connection and community.
Rather than treating each event as a standalone workshop, we would like to programme a series of Write Club events at Second Home every month to form a recurring cultural events
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B O D Y D O U B L I N G E V E N T S
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L I V E W R I T I N G A N D R E A D I N G S A L O N S
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G U E S T - C U R AT E D W R I T E C L U B S E S S S I O N S
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C O L L A B S W I T H P U B L I S H E R S A N D A G E N T S
Each provides opportunities not only to bring new audiences into the space, but new high-profile guests into Second Home.
P H O T O G R A P H Y A N D V I D E O :
We record parts of each session on an 8K high resolution video camera. The quality of the footage is such that we are able to generate both screenshots and video clips to use as marketing material and social media assets from our session.
Images captured at the event can also be shared via email to all those attending.
Included below are images taken from a number of our previous events at Soho House, The Groucho Club, The House of Koko, The Barbican and The Royal Academy of Arts, featuring the following (incredible) guest speakers:
Laurie Nunn - Emmy Award Winning Creator & Showrunner of 'Sex Education'
Irvine Welsh - Bafta Award Winning Screenwriter and Author of 'Trainspotting', 'Filth', 'The Acid House'
Polly Bennett - Oscar Winning Movement Coach of the Films: 'Elvis', 'Bohemia Rhapsody', 'The Crown', 'Saltburn'
Mike Figgis - Oscar Nominated Director & Screenwriter 'Leaving Las Vegas', 'Timecode', 'Internal Affairs'
Jon Brittain - Olivier Winning Playwright & Screenwriter 'Baby Reindeer' 'Rotterdam', 'The Crown'
Vinay Patel - Award Winning Screenwriter & Playwright, 'Murdered by My Father', 'Doctor Who'
Naomi Sheldon - Golden Globe Nominated Screenrriter and Actor: 'The Girlfriend', 'Good Girl'
Selina Lim - Bafta Nominated & Emmy Award Winning Screenwriter 'Sex Education', 'Hanna'
Siddarth Shrikanth - Climate Author, Journalist and Investor: 'The Case for Nature'
Isis Davis - Award Winning Writer & Actor - 'Killing Eve', 'Fast Girls'
Laurie Nunn
Emmy Award Winning Creator and Showrunner of
'Sex Education'
Simon Armitage
Poet Laureate
'Dwell', 'The Not Dead', 'Stanza Stones'
Andrew Davies
BAFTA Award Winning Screenwriter
'War and Peace', 'House of Cards', 'Bridget Jones Diary'
Selina Lim
Emmy Award Winning Screenwriter
'Sex Education', 'Hanna'
Waleed Akhtar
Olivier Award Winning Playwright and Screenwriter
'The P Word', 'The Roadtrip'
Daisy Goodwin
Author, Screenwriter and Showrunner
'ITV's Victoria', 'My Last Duchess'
Isis Davis
Actor and Writer
'Killing Eve', 'Fast Girls'
Temi Wilkey
Writer, Actor & Director
'Sex Education', 'The High Table'
Jennifer Higgie
Author, Screenwriter and Arts Editor
'The Mirror and the Palette', Former Frieze Magazine Editor
Leon Mayne
Screenwriter and Producer
'End of the F*cking World, 'Brothers With No Game'
Jon Brittain
Olivier Winning Playwright & Screenwriter
' Baby Reindeer' 'Rotterdam', 'The Crown'
Polly Bennett
Oscar Winning Movement Director & Choreographer
'Elvis', 'Saltburn', 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
Maimuna Memom
Olivier Winning Writer & Actor
'The Grapes of Wrath', 'Standing at the Sky’s Edge'
Irvine Welsh
Author and Screenwriter
'Trainspotting', 'Filth', 'The Acid House'
Esther Freud
Author
'I Couldn't Love You More', 'Hideous Kinky', 'The Sea House'
Mike Figgis
Oscar Nominated Director and Screenwriter
'Leaving Las Vegas', 'Timecode', 'Internal Affairs'
Luke Jennings
Screenwriter and Show Creator
'Killing Eve'
Travis Alabanza
Author, Writer & Performer
'None of the Above', Burgerz', 'Overflow'
Anthony Anaxagorou
Poet, Author and Royal Society of Literature Fellow
'Heritage Aesthetics', 'The Blink That Killed The Eye'
Vinay Patel
Screenwriter & Playwright
'Murdered by My Father', 'Doctor Who'
Daniel Bailey
Artistic Director at the Bush Theatre
'Wolves on Road', 'August in England'
Katherine Angel
Author
'Sex Will Be Good Again', 'Daddy Issues'
Henry Mance
Chief Features Writer, Financial Times
'How to Love Animals and Protect our Planet'
Emily Hayward-Whitlock
Screenwriters Agent and Head of Book to Film
at The Artists Partnership
Naomi Sheldon
Actor, Producer & Screenwriter
'The Girlfriend', 'The Good Girl'
Siddarth Shrikanth
Climate Author, Journalist and Investor
'The Case for Nature'
P R E V I O U S G U E S T S P E A K E R S :
T E S T I M O N I A L S F R O M P A R T I C P A N T S :
“I sit on the Inclusivity Board at Soho House and the Committee at Soho Works. I go to a lot of the events here and the Houses, and I don’t feel like I’ve got the sense of community from other workshops I’ve attended. We have a lot of people that come in and create space, which is great, but all of the connections I have in Soho are a result of the people I met at Write Club. It feels like family rather than just a community”.
- Melissa Sinclair
"As a new writer, Write Club has been transformative for me. It’s given me a sense of community, access to inspiration, and, most importantly, the confidence to believe I can pursue writing seriously. It’s not just an event—it’s a safe haven where I feel seen and supported, a space where I’ve been able to truly hone my ‘voice’ and explore my creativity without judgement.
- Adwoa Akoto
"The Write Club team run fantastic sessions which I’d recommend to anyone with an interest in writing. Their guest speakers - often impressively big names! - talk about their careers and use their experience to offer a mix of advice and encouragement that usefully straddles the border between ‘inspiring’ and ‘realistic’. Plus, there are always ingenious exercises to get everyone in the room writing there and then, often in ways they might not have done so before - and it’s a treat to hear the results of these read aloud. I’ve really enjoyed getting involved with their sessions - and I can see that any organisation which has an interest in driving creativity could do well to book Write Club, too."
- Toby Smith
"Matt and Susanna have done an incredible job of curating guest speakers each month that span industries, genders, races, sexual orientations, social classes and life experiences. And it’s this effort that attracts an equally diverse community to Write Club that makes for one of the richest, most welcoming, caring and inspiring communities I’ve been a part of.”
- Jamie Tomkins
We would relish the opportunity to discuss with you further the possibility of building one or more Write Club events at Second Home. Please let us know if you have any questions or if we could supply any more information.
Best wishes and many thanks,
Matt and Susanna