To grow in craft is to increase the breadth of what I can do,
but art is the depth, the passion, the desire, the courage to be myself and myself alone.
~ Pat Schneider
Welcome to the home of the Amherst Writers Method!
Maybe you’re here because you’ve lost the joy you used to feel when you were writing and you want to get that back.
Maybe you stumbled into an AWA Method workshop by accident and afterwards thought “I want more of that!”
Maybe another writer, whose voice you admire and who wants to support you in the development of your craft, directed you here.
Maybe your writing has been eviscerated in too many workshops that revel in the critical without recognizing the strengths in your voice and your writing.
Whatever brought you here, we’re glad you’ve found us!
The AWA method… cracked open my world and spilled it with all of its light and darkness onto paper. It created a safe and supportive haven for my writing to flourish in poetry, in fiction, in memoir.
Amherst Writers & Artists is an organization that has offered me a way into writing, into my voice. Its philosophy and belief that every person has a story to tell no matter their station has been proven before my eyes… When I return to these workshops, it feels like coming home.
My AWA writing workshop provides a safe and supportive space that gently pushes me out of my writing comfort zone into a learning zone. The workshop has also helped me process and gain deeper understanding of some challenging experiences I have had during the last three years as the father of a medically complex child with disabilities.
The AWA Method helped me see the strengths in my writing that initially I couldn’t see. I felt supported and encouraged when I read out loud, even though I might have trembled a bit as I did. Each affirmative comment was like a building block that helped to create a firm foundation and belief in my own ability.