Borrowed Voices, Living Seas: Lyric Writing

Explore how historical texts and environmental perspectives can be transformed into contemporary song. Led by Georgia and rooted in her Shackleton Violin project, this session draws on polar expedition diaries, explorers’ songs, and the living sea as inspiration for lyric writing.

Participants will work with borrowed language, explore non-human narrators, and experiment with endurance, repetition, and restraint in lyric writing. The workshop offers practical tools for turning factual or archival writing into emotionally resonant lyrics, while reflecting on how songs can engage with place, memory, and marine environments. Suitable for songwriters and writers of any level who are interested in music, history, and the natural world.

Georgia Shackleton is a folk singer and musician best known for working with traditional material from East Anglia. She works with fiddle, voice, tenor guitar and drones to create crisp arrangements of old songs, and new compositions. Georgia is a critically acclaimed songwriter, with self-penned songs and traditional re-workings achieving national radio play on BBC Radio 2, 3, 4 and 6 Music. Georgia takes great influence from the traditional singers of the East of England such as Harry Cox, Walter Pardon and Phoebe Smith. The traditional material she performs often stems from her native East Anglia and her own compositions are frequently inspired by stories from the region and its unique, compelling landscape.