ABOUT
Meet Ella
Founder, Writer & Alchemist at
Coffee With Ella
Come closer and pull up a chair.
The story behind the coffee shop and the stories I had to unlearn to get here.
“I’m not creative” was the story I carried out of primary school. Whether it was said outright or simply absorbed, it stuck — the belief that creativity belonged to other people. So I did what many of us do: I got the grades, followed the rules, and built a life that looked great on paper. But still, something didn’t quite feel like me.
It took me years, or decades really, to unpick that story, and to realise creativity isn’t something you’re awarded but something you already are. Not just in what you make, but in how you think, choose, dream and live every single day.
Becoming a mother is where Coffee With Ella really began.
Witnessing my daughter’s curiosity and wonder up close was the invitation I needed to remember — and return — to my own creativity. Books have always been how I’ve made sense of the world so it makes so much sense that this is where I’ve landed.
Coffee With Ella is where little Ella comes out to play — the one who wrote her sixth grade leavers play and stayed writing after class, lost in the process. The one who would swallow a book whole, immersed in the plot.
It then became a space where the version of me mothering my daughter – and myself – learns how to hold both their hands a little more gently, in real time.
So they can both be curious, take up space, and lose themselves in all that is so precious about childhood. Because one thing they don’t teach you in antenatal class is how confronting parenthood can be every single day. I think about this most days — not just how much it asks of you, but who it invites you to become, as you come face to face with who you’ve been, who you’re becoming – and, in my case, who I’m mothering.
You’ll soon find me pondering this more on Substack, but for Coffee With Ella, I’ve learned that giving myself permission to return to my childhood lack of inhibition— the goofiness, the wonder, the curiosity — is what makes me, well, me.
And that returning — that remembering — is now the work I do with others too.
Coffee With Ella is the outward expression of this inner alchemy.
It’s a space for women of colour writers — and those drawn to a more creative life — to come back to themselves on the page and in how they live beyond it.
The work I do often looks like
this, both in my work and my
own creative life:
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No, seriously. We play and remember by returning to what we loved — in childhood, in stories, in the things we’re drawn to without trying. With the simple purpose of finding joy on an ordinary Tuesday and reconnecting with what lights us up.
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We pay attention to what pulls us in. What feels interesting, expansive, a little bit electric — and we let that lead, even if it doesn’t make sense yet. Especially if it doesn’t make sense yet.
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Think: your childhood dress-up box. We give ourselves permission to experiment. To write differently, think differently and move – and be seen – differently without needing it to be final or the full story.
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We notice what expands. What feels like you, what brings energy, ease, curiosity and joy — and, maybe more importantly, what doesn’t.
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We keep what fits, release what doesn’t, and tweak what wants to feel more like you. And we begin to shape a creative practice — and life — that feels true to you.
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Not when it’s perfect but when it’s ready enough. On the page, and off it, in your own way. As a way of being seen for who you really are, and of living what you’re creating in real time.
Ready to try this for yourself and Dream Up Your Creative Life? Check out my free guided exercise for imagining just this.
creative life
/ˈkriːeɪtɪv laɪf/
A way of living where creativity isn’t separate from your life, but woven into how you think, choose, and show up in your everyday — on the page and far beyond it.
Welcome To My Coffee Shop
A space to step away from what you’ve inherited and dream up a life that feels more like you.
Here you’ll find… Intimate gatherings where you get to return to yourself, think differently, and write as if no one is watching. The podcast where you get to listen in on conversations with women like you who are living a creative life in real time. And the bookshelf — filled with dog-eared pages, scribbles in the margins and exclaimation-marked paragraphs.
Know that you don’t have to have it all figured out before you arrive. There's always a strong brew to sip alongside what's emerging, you just have to come in and pull up a seat.
Feeling Curious?
Where To Start
The
Pour Over
A slower, more intentional brew shared in community, guiding you through my creative process.
Private
1:1 Sessions
A stronger kind of blend where we wake up, and quite literally smell the coffee, to look at what’s really in the way of your creative life.
The Espresso Collective
A monthly writers’ salon and the table we return to each month to tend to our creativity alongside other women writers of colour.
Retreats
Currently being dreamed up so we can step out of the everyday café and into a more immersive space where your creative life gets your full attention.
While the Kettle’s On…
(A few things I get asked all the time)
What is this work, really?
It’s about creativity but not just the “doing.” It’s about how you live, how you choose, how you come back to yourself, again and again, on that ordinary Tuesday.
Do I need to call myself a writer?
Nope. I do work with a lot of writers, but if you’re feeling creatively curious and want to write, create, or express — on or off the page — this is for you.
Do I need to identify as a woman of colour?
Some gatherings like The Espresso Collective and The Pour Over are intentionally created for women of colour writers. Others are more open to who I call the creatively curious. If you’re unsure what’s for you, you’re always welcome to get in touch.
What happens in the spaces you hold?
We slow down, pay attention and follow the breadcrumbs of what’s pulling you even if it doesn’t make sense yet. Especially if it doesn’t make sense yet.
What if I don’t know where to start?
That’s more than okay. Some people arrive with a clear goal but more often than not, that goal will shift or fall away entirely as something more aligned begins to emerge. So no, you don’t need to have it all figured out but you do need a willingness to begin.
Oh and what’s your coffee order?
Often, a vanilla latte, although lately, you’ll also
find me cacao in one hand, pen in the other,
alchemising on the page.
