KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Change the story. Change what becomes possible.
How the story you tell shapes the life, team, and future you create.
Kate Markland helps audiences understand the stories they carry, challenge the limits those stories create, and imagine what comes next.
For conferences, leadership events, schools, and foundations that want people to leave inspired, connected, and ready to take action.
Every person, team, and organisation is living inside a story.
The stories we repeat shape:
What we believe is possible
What we attempt
What we avoid
How we respond to change
"I'm not creative."
"We always miss this deadline."
"This change won't work."
Kate helps audiences recognise the stories holding them back and create new ones.
Storytelling to create the world you want. Proven twice
Twenty years as a physiotherapist
Kate saw that patients recovered differently once their own story had been listened to, not corrected. The story they told about their injury shaped what they believed their body could do next
One hour on a Friday evening
In the hardest time of her life, Kate had one hour a week with her son. She asked: would you like to make a story where you are the hero? He imagined a world. She wrote it down and corrected nothing. Then 465 children in nine schools did the same
We didn't escape what was happening. We refused to let it be the only story
Book 3, The Thunderbolt of Hindustan, carries the world from Coral Cove to India and Pakistan: a British Pakistani boy's imagination, crossing East and West. And Kate still does this every week: every Friday, the Coral Cove Dispatch shares a child's story, read exactly as written
Create the World You Want
Imagination is not an escape from real life. It is where real life gets rehearsed. Kate shows your people how to hear the story they are telling, imagine a better one, and take the first step inside it
One talk, shaped for your room
CORPORATE: WELLBEING AND CHANGE
Create the World You Want
465 children. 100 percent took part. Only 2 of 318 gave a negative answer
How the story you tell about change shapes what you do next
Think it. Do it. Did it.: a three-step way to rewrite it
For wellbeing days, conferences, and International Women's Day
Read more about this talk
LEADERS AND MANAGERS
Heard Before Corrected
Workplace Statistic on listening or psychological Safety with source
Why people stop imagining when they are corrected first
The listening habits of twenty years in clinical practice
How to hear the story behind a problem before fixing it
Read more about this talk
FOUNDATIONS, EDUCATION, AND PARENTS
Every Child an Author
Boys are twice as likely as girls to fall behind in writing by age 11
What happened when 465 children were given their own story
Why every reluctant writer took part
For foundation galas, education conferences, and parent evenings
Read more about this talk
For event planners: easy to work with, tailored to your room, and staying afterwards to meet your people and sign books
PROVEN. MOVING. PRACTICAL
“
When it came to story writing, some children would just shut down. StoryQuest changed that. They were joyful, buzzing, excited to tell their stories.
“
Engaging reluctant boys in writing has been a school focus. In our session, they couldn't wait to get started. The joy in the room was infectious.
“
I didn't know I had so many stories inside me until I was allowed to let them out.
Your audience is
different?
Good. Kate listens before she speaks, the same rule she teaches. A 20-minute call with you, and a few questions to your people before the day, so the talk is built for your room and the stories your people are telling right now
Start the conversation
Booking Kate
On Friday evening, you ask one question and let your child lead.
They choose the characters, create the world and decide where the story goes. Every idea is theirs. Every word is captured exactly as they say it.
You do not correct, guide or rush them. You simply listen, follow their imagination and give them the space to be completely themselves.
It begins with a story. But what you create together is something much bigger: connection.
Tell us about your event. Date, audience, and the world you want your people to create.
A 20-minute call with Kate. She listens first, then shapes the talk to your room.
On the day.The keynote, pass the story, and a free Book 1 offer for every guest to take home.
Prefer email? [email protected]
Create the world you want, at home
FOR YOU
The PlatyPress
Kate's printed monthly letter on creating the world you want. First issue for the cost of printing.
Start your trial
FOR YOUR CHILD
The Adventures of Gabriel
The world a ten-year-old imagined. Book 1 free, you pay the postage.
Claim Book 1
FOR YOUR SCHOOL
StoryQuest in the classroom
The method behind 465 children's stories, for your pupils.
Talk to us
STORYQUEST
StoryQuest gives children the freedom to imagine, speak and be heard without being corrected, guided or rushed. It begins with a story. But what families create together is something much bigger: connection.
coNTACT dETAILS
+44 7360 270776
© Copyright 2026. StoryQuest Club. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy