Writing While Caring

A Practical, Generous and Slightly Bloody-Minded Guide for Unpaid Carers Who Write – Or Want To

Anna Vaught

Paperback
64pp
Publication date: 10 September 2026
ISBN: 9781804472354
£5

Pre-order coming soon

If  you care for someone without pay and you write, this little book was made for you.

Writing while Caring is Dr Anna Vaught’s practical, generous and slightly bloody-minded guide for writers whose lives are full of hospital appointments, forms, and interruptions; who are often tired, unsupported and, perhaps, very sad.

Drawing on the principles of The Alchemy and The Elixir, and everything the Curae Prize has taught her about the sheer number of brilliant, invisible writer-carers out there, Vaught makes the case that you don’t need four uninterrupted hours and a linen notebook to be a real writer. You need a hundred words, permission to write badly, and someone telling you the truth: you are still a writer. 

Funny, fierce and unexpectedly tender, this is a small book built to feel like a friend on a hard day.

Dr Anna Vaught is an English teacher, Creative Writing teacher, mentor, editor and author of ten previous books. Her short creative works and features have been widely published, and she has written for the national press and has had a column with The Bookseller, Mslexia and other publications. She is the founder of The Curae, a literary prize for carers, a tutor for Jericho Writers, a freelance mentor, occasional university lecturer, a volunteer with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and campaigns for SEN provision. She has particular interests in magical realism and trauma and literature, psychology and chronic illnesss, subjects in her recent DPhil. She is the mother of three sons, comes from a large Welsh family and lives in Wiltshire.