Dr Lesel Dawson

Lesel is the Arts and Culture Lead of the Good Grief Festival. She loves being part of the Good Grief community and the conversations at the Festival and beyond.

Lesel is fascinated by the ways stories and creative projects provide opportunities to express, process and understand grief. She has been honoured to work with wonderful artists, therapists and researchers on projects that aim to build a more open and compassionate society. Her work includes co-producing two short films on children, grief and creativity; partnering with charities on an article on mandatory grief education; collaborating on an illustrated booklet on grief and baby loss; writing the screenplay for a fiction film about disenfranchised grief; and working with theatre company Crowded Room on an audio story.

An Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Bristol, her academic research explores grief, literature and the history of the emotions. She is currently writing a book on grief and creativity.