Spreadsheets & Moxie

“Moxie: pep, determination, know-how. Force of character.The ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage.”

What is Spreadsheets & Moxie?

I’m working in tandem with fellow writer Sarah Salway to consider what leadership and professionalism look like for Creative Arts practitioners, with a particular focus on the needs and roles of professional women writers.

Through this we intend to create a rounded model of the creative, organisational and leadership skills needed to design, fund, run and evaluate innovative and meaningful Creative Arts projects. This period of R&D is funded by a grant from Arts Council England and with the support of some fabulous partners.

We’d like to know your thoughts on our approach and we’d like to pick your brains on your experiences: to be kept aware of opportunities to contribute to our R&D sign up to our mailing list. You can unsubscribe at any time and we promise not to spam you.

Where did the project spring from?

Professional creative artists hold a unique set of talents and skills that support their chosen style of working. These are often learnt or developed on the job in response to the needs of each creative endeavour rather than learnt or developed formally.

This sporadic skill development can result in a lack of confidence: crippling bouts of self-doubt that prevent us from thinking and acting with ambition and anxiety over the value of the work we produce or our ability to work productively. Through their own experience, Sarah and Viccy see this as an endemic issue across the entire of the under-resourced Creative Arts sector.

Recent studies have highlighted concerns around the lack of women in leadership roles across all sectors and suggested that women have drastically lower career confidence than men. Because of this, for this period of R&D we are interested in looking particularly at challenges and opportunities for women.

Got a question? Get in touch with Team Moxie.