🧙‍♀️ Welcome to Write Like a Witch

Hi, I’m Dianne—poet, workshop guide, and creator of The Northern Matriarch. I write about truth, tenderness, rebellion, and the strange magic of being alive.

This group is a weekly writing ritual here on Substack, Write Like a Witch, where we trade perfection for presence, and write from the bone, the breath, the belly.

Here, you’ll find:

✨ Weekly poetic prompts (aka spells)

🪞 Gentle provocations to help you notice more deeply

🔥 A community of women, creatives, and quiet rebels

🌿 A safe space to share your words—raw, half-formed, or wildly blooming

You don’t need to be a writer to be here.

You need to listen for what others miss

and write like a witch.

The cauldron’s on.

The spell’s begun.

Let’s stir something real together.

— Dianne 🖤

⸻

🌬️ If Magic Exists

(after Spell No. 1: What the Wind Knows)

If magic exists,

it’s not the glitter kind

that floats you off the ground.

It’s a shaky voice

in a quiet room

saying what’s never been said.

It’s the sigh

when someone nods

and you realise

you’ve been holding your breath

for ten years.

I didn’t bring crystals.

I brought truth.

Heavy enough.

I didn’t raise my hands.

I let them rest

still, open

finally ready

to receive

without earning.

Maybe I named it too soon.

Maybe you’re meant to wait

before calling it sacred.

But spelling is that

for a reason.

To spell

is to speak

what wants to live.

So I’ll say it:

What we did was power.

What we do next

is the spell.

⸻

🔥 I Was the One Who Lit the Match

(a reckoning, a remembering)

I didn’t just listen.

I conjured.

I opened the door.

That should matter more than it does to me

the fact that I showed up

as my own damn witch,

that I let stillness touch me

in places I usually pad with noise.

Do you know how hard that is?

To sit and not perform?

To share from the marrow

without the muscle of control?

I invited Zen,

though I barely trust it.

I led us to the cliff-edge

with nothing but words

and hoped the wind would hold.

Some brought grief,

some fire,

some silence like a bowl.

I brought my body.

I brought my need

to finally be the one

who doesn’t just hold space

but fills it.

This poem isn’t a record.

It’s the flicker that remained

after we each threw something in the fire.

I won’t quote what was spoken

some things should stay

between the breath and the candle.

But I’ll say this:

There was power in that sharing

Not the kind that demands reverence

the kind that insists on honesty.

And if I trembled,

it wasn’t fear.

It was the sound of my old self

letting go

of the need to disappear.

⸻

💌 Join the Circle

If something stirred in you reading this

if you want to write more honestly,

more intuitively,

more wildly

you’re exactly where you need to be.

Subscribe to follow along and get a new poetic spell every Monday.

Each one is a small ritual in words crafted to loosen, awaken, and restore.

✨ The next cauldron invitation drops Monday.

Bring your truth. Bring your breath. Bring a pen.

We begin again soon

.

#WriteLikeAWitch

#TheNorthernMatriarch