Member Profile - Open Narrative

14th April 2021

This weeks Sheffield Chamber member profile focuses on Open Narrative, a small independent publisher based in Sheffield.

My name is Lorraine Dixon, and I am the founder of Open Narrative. I currently live in my hometown of Sheffield, but I have lived in Italy

I worked in a number of different industries and before starting my own company I had a career in adult education specialising in English language and literacy. I have been a photographer, a graphic designer, a call centre operative, a sales manager, a recruitment consultant, a teacher and a restaurant owner. In fact, we still have a little Italian restaurant, La Baracca on Abbeydale Road, Sheffield, which my husband runs. I have travelled to different parts of the world such as Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Egypt and Uganda but there are still so many places I would love to visit.

In 2011 I left further education and used my redundancy to complete my coaching qualifications and I set up my own coaching company, Open Narrative. This was the beginning of a whole new career that eventually led to publishing Being Me in 2017.

This was just the beginning and in 2019 I created and published Reflections, a conversation based card game and in the spring of 2020 My Journal was published.

I recently took over Art Scene, an art supplies shop based on Chesterfield Road, on the outskirts of Sheffield City Centre. This is the new home and retail space for Open Narrative, and we’ve added an Italian coffee shop too.

In September, Covid restrictions allowing, there will be evening art classes and journaling workshops and I hope to add a small range of stationery to the art supplies section.

Watch this space for new products in planning and production for 2022.

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