Course Facilitators

Dawn Garisch has been running life writing courses since 2009. She has run these for individual participants across South Africa, as part of the ASSITEJ young theatre makers programme, the UFS Academic Support programme, the UCT Art in Medicine course and the UCT Entrepreneur course. Dawn is a medical doctor, as well as an award-winning writer, having published six novels, two poetry collections and two works of non-fiction. She has also had plays, television scripts and one short film produced. Dawn is in the process of training other facilitators so that life writing, and the life skills that result, will be made available to more people.

Giles was born in 1962 in Kent, UK. Giles is a gay white male who likes food, wine, water and books. He was brought up mostly in the Midlands of England, spending his early working life in London and the past 30 years in Cape Town. During this time, he worked as a copywriter for a variety of advertising agencies and for Triangle Project, whose focus is LGBTIA+ health. He co-facilitates ‘A Pack of Wild Queers’ - a community space for queer people to share their creative work. He is moved by “nature, mothers, unspoken emotion, unjust oppression, a finely turned bicep and creativity – in particular, gastronomic and literary innovation.”

“Gone viral”, whose opening passage appears in the LRC’s first anthology, “This is how it is”, is a personal and public eulogy – both for those who have gone before and those who have survived the HIV pandemic. His love of food and experience of loss, in several forms, has prompted him to introduce two new LRC courses: “Edible Memoirs: Writing the Plate, Digesting our Memories” and “Lost/Found: Facing our Losses, Writing our Healing.” These are available on request. Something you don't know about Giles: one of his maternal great aunts ended up being his paternal step-grandmother: food for thought for family constellations and writing alike!

Linda is a poet, writer, projects and events manager in the arts. She is a Salzburg Global Seminars Fellow and a CNN-featured project manager with over eight years of experience in project and event management in the arts sector. In 2013, she performed in Amsterdam at the Afro Vibes Festival alongside Dutch poet Babs Gons, in a poetic production entitled Becoming Another, Becoming You.

She was a panellist and facilitator at the Open Book Festival in 2014, 2017 and 2018 and at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in 2015 and 2016. She’s also shared her work locally and in Austria, Ghana, and Kenya. Her work has been published on Unbranded Truth Online Magazine, which she founded and edited, on Badilisha Poetry X-change, and on the Life Righting Collective website, as well as in New Contrast. She is a contributing author to the Life Righting Collective’s This is how it is anthology, with her hilarious piece “Mrs”.

Tara Rose weaves Zen Coaching, Family Constellations, Sacred Sexuality and Tantra together to create sacred containers where people can become curious adventurers of their inner and outer world. She has presented at international online Tantra and Family Constellations events and runs local and international workshops and retreats.

Tara Rose is a poetry lover and writer who has facilitated 30-day poetry journeys for the past few years and hosts Poetry Open Mic events. In past lives she has been a copywriter, freelance features writer, copy editor and press release writer. She has a poetry book manuscript waiting to be birthed.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa into a rich, marginalised cultural heritage, Nicole is a Camissa African or Cape Indigenous African; genetically complex peoples collectively representing over 195 lineages.

She holds a B.A. degree in Communications Science, is a graduate of African Constellations and is in continuous mentorship in African indigenous healing practices. She weaves together years of senior management skill earned in the Communications industry with her inherited and reviving indigenous knowledge. She has led diverse teams through complex sub-Saharan challenges, experience that she regards as catalytic to development as a facilitator. Through her organisation, Nalu Thando, Nicole facilitates process for individuals, communities and organisations in one-on-one consultation, group workshops and ceremonies. Through Story, Ritual, Family and Systems Constellations Nicole’s work supports people and projects to stay on purpose, whole, connected and moving in the direction of love.

She nourishes her soul in the mountains and waters of the Cape's South Peninsula accompanied by her dog, Rosemary.