To be connected with any board member who doesn’t have a listed email, please reach out to info@amherstwriters.org.

Our Board of Directors has openings! Please go to this link and let us know where your heart lies in terms of furthering AWA’s important work.

Chair: guy howard klopp

– really does write his name in lower case – perhaps it is a core belief he must accomplish great deeds to deserve capitalization. He fell in love with language as a child actor going on to earn his Equity card and performing in classical theater all over the country.

guy has written with AWA groups for over ten years now and was certified as a facilitator in 2018. He facilitated two ongoing AWA groups, one Zoom version through Bread of Life in Sacramento California and a second in-person group. He has been hosting a group for writers working on their novels or memoirs. Finally, he works with two groups with Folsom Prison inmates. He spent twenty years in government social services working in alcohol and drug services, senior and adult services, and finishing with 10 years managing in child protective services.

Vice Chair: Susan Wingert (Ph.D.)

Susan Wingert is a sociologist, editor, researcher, writer, and mom. She received her doctorate in sociology from Western University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in family studies from the University of Manitoba. She works with the Alan Klass Program in Health and Humanities at the University of Manitoba. As an AWA facilitator, she has worked with health professionals, medical students and residents, cancer patients, caregivers, parents, and middle schoolers. She is a member of the AWA Board of Directors, and the Power of Story, Caregiver Project, and Write Around the World committees. She lives in Winnipeg.

Secretary: Ginger T. Rex

Ginger is a writer and SAG-AFTRA actress based in the Four Corners region of New Mexico. She writes poetry, screenplays, books, and short stories about resilience and overcoming while continuing to work in film and television. An adventurer at heart, she finds creative inspiration in the wilderness, spending time hiking, mountain biking, and skiing with her family. She has learned skills to heal and she feels it is a privilege to share her journey with others. As an AWA facilitator and board member, she leads writing workshops for survivors and those navigating loss and grief, offering a space for connection and creative expression.

Member-at-Large:  Sue Reynolds

Sue Reynolds is a certified Hakomi practitioner, a writer and a writing facilitator passionate about the Amherst Writers and Artists method. She is both past president of the Writers Community of Durham Region and past vice-president of the national Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs (Canada’s version of the AWP). She has served on the board of AWA since 2014.

Consuelo S. Meux, Ph.D.

Dr. Consuelo first experienced the AWA method with Patricia Schneider at the Pacific School of Religion and was later certified as an AWA Facilitator.  She has a Ph.D. in Human and Organization Systems, is a Certified Creativity Coach, and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV). She is published with Jossey-Bass, Peregrine Literary Journal, and other sources. During her years as a university business professor, she created AWA writing workshops to encourage diverse students to own their voice and to improve their writing skills.

Consuelo provides workshops on nonprofit diversity, equity, and inclusiveness (DEI) issues and partners with a nonprofit consulting firm to provide strategic planning and board governance trainings for national and international nonprofits. Her AWA workshops include an affinity group for African American/Black women writers. She also uses the AWA method to support web writers with various forms of online content creation.

Dr. Meadow Jones, Ph.D.

Meadow Jones received her doctorate from the University of Illinois. Her dissertation, <em>Archiving the Trauma Diaspora: Affective Artifacts in the Higher Education Arts Classroom,</em> is an interdisciplinary investigation and extended case study into the role of material and artistic practices in the redress of trauma. She has participated in and facilitated arts and writing practices and groups in both formal and informal education environments and has worked with undergraduates, artists, activists, teachers, teenagers, trauma survivors, prisoners, physicians and friends. Her words have been published in literary journals, peer reviewed research journals, and poetry anthologies and chapbooks. She became and AWA certified affiliate in 2011. She writes with others because she must. Some work doesn’t happen unless others are close.

Katie Marshall Flaherty

Kate Marshall Flaherty’s sixth book of poetry, “Radiant,” launched in 2019 with Inanna Press. She was shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year 2019, and for Exile’s Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Prize 2018, and won the 2018 King Foundation Georgian Bay Project Award for her nature poetry. She has been published in numerous Canadian and International Journals and Anthologies, such as Vallum, Malahat Review, CV2, Grain, Saranac Review, and was shortlisted for Descant’s Best Canadian Poem, the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Prize, the Robert Frost Poetry Award and others. She was in-house editor for Quattro Books and edited Best New Poets in Canada 2018. She was Toronto Rep. for the League of Canadian Poets 2012 -2018, and inaugurated Toronto’s “Poetry in Union” in 2018, and “Poetry and Healing” for Sick Kids in 2019. She guides StillPoint Writing Workshops and Editing Circles in the AWA Method in schools, youth shelters, universities and hospitals. She was on the Canadian Team of AWA Trainers in 2017 and 2018. See her performance poetry to music on her website.

Ashley Schein

Matthew Curlewis

Matthew’s AWA involvement began in 199x (numbers are not his forté) when a friend invited him to try Aaron Zimmerman’s Manhattan Writers, NYC. There was no turning back. In 2004 Matthew had the privilege of taking his workshop leadership course with Pat Schneider, at her house in Amherst, during a blizzard. In 2005 he began leading workshops in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for wordsinhere, and then in 2008 launched his workshop Writers’ Stretch & Tone, under his own banner: Amsterdam Writers.

Since co-founding and running Pastels, a sell-out cabaret café in the heart of Sydney, at the age of 17, Matthew has worked in creative industries — as a dancer / performer; as a print & digital designer / producer / creative director; and as a screenwriter, script editor / tutor, and copywriter — all of the above variously in Australia, Japan, Europe and the United States. Matthew’s qualifications include Certificates in Screenwriting and Script Editing from Amsterdam’s Binger Filmlab, a Bachelor’s in Cultural Criticism, Performance Studies & Interactive Technologies from New York University, and a Certificate in Performance: Dance from Australia’s Centre for Performing Arts. His words can be found in publications including The Guardian, Wordpeace, Blume Illustrated and RemoRandom, and at his Substack: Bright Side Writings. And he is thrilled to be an AWA board member as of January, 2025!

Andrea Vassallo

Andrea Vassallo joined a weekly AWA group at her local library in 2014 and became a workshop leader in 2018. Andrea is a co-chair of AWA’s northeast chapter. She lives on the coast of Maine, where she is a writer, nonprofit director and founder of Damariscotta River Writers. She is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing at The University of Southern Maine. She has been an editor and reader for The Stonecoast Review, The Maine Review, and Peregrine. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, named a Maine Literary Awards finalist and cited in Best American Essays notable essays. Andrea is the proud parent of a Hampshire College student and she enjoys spending as much time as possible on the water with friends and family.