Betsy Abrams is a social worker, social activist, a writer, and AWA affiliate. She is a believer in the power of listening, of writing, and of sharing our stories on the journey to recovery from oppression and addiction. She has spent many years working with families with young children, working with women in recovery, leading writing groups for mothers, teachers, and social service staff. She brings with her a deep appreciation of the resilience of the human spirit. Her passion for social justice and understanding of the impact of oppression informs her writing, her relationships with others, and her leadership.
Marjorie Ackerman has been a writer and poet from a very young age and actively participates in a writer’s feedback group. In addition to decades of journal writing, short stories, and essays, she regularly contributes articles to local organization newsletters and blog sites. Certified as an AWA workshop facilitator in 2015, she has incorporated the writing method into her work with area churches. She is currently exploring ways to use the AWA method with musicians and artists.
Sandra Block, Ph.D. is a certified AWA workshop facilitator and a licensed clinical psychologist with 30 years of practice in listening and facilitating the life stories of her clients. In her workshops, Sandra uses the tools of psychology and her AWA training to facilitate deep expressive writing shared in a safe, respectful and supportive space. She has led creative writing workshops in Southern California and at national conferences for a variety of populations including seniors, religious organizations, physicians and mental health professionals. Workshop topics include Wise Aging, Fairy Tales And Myths In Writing, The Beginning Writer and more. You can reach Sandra at sandrablock1@gmail.com
Marian Calabro became an AWA affiliate in 2004-2005, in trainings led by Pat Schneider and Kate Hymes. She leads workshops in community education settings and privately. A published author of nonfiction history books, Marian writes in several genres. Her essays and poems have appeared in The Smart Set, Italian Americana, NJ English Journal, NY-underscore, Peregrine, and The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow anthologies. Her plays have been produced at community theaters in the New York metro area and online. https://mariancalabro.com
Shelley Johnson Carey is the author of numerous articles, short stories, and poems, and of the nonfiction book, Thin Mint Memories: Scouting for Empowerment through the Girl Scout Cookie Program. She recently retired from her nearly 40-year editorial career, where she worked on several award-winning magazines and journals. Most recently, she served as the editor of Peer Review, a higher education journal, where she worked with hundreds of authors to polish their writing. Shelley has an BA from Hampshire Colleges and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Goucher College. She has facilitated several writing workshops for teens and adults. She is currently revising a novel about a group of friends, which is based on her own lifetime friendships. www.shelleyjohnsoncarey.com
Yvonne Combs, Ph.D. is a retired Army officer and former professor of Sociology. She earned her doctoral degree in Sociology from the University of Florida. Specializing in social stratification with an emphasis on the intersections of race, class, and gender, she taught courses in Sociology. Retiring from academia Yvonne, who won a statewide writing contest at the age of fifteen, returned to her love affair with words. Several writing retreats, led by Patricia Lee Lewis, stimulated her curiosity about the AWA method. These encounters eventually led her to train as an AWA writing group leader. Yvonne is a new member of Straw Dogs Writer’s Guild in Northampton MA. She will soon be certified to train future AWA writing group leaders. Given the current enlightened efforts of AWA to demonstrate inclusiveness, Yvonne hopes to provide writing workshop opportunities for marginalized populations, especially Black women, who wish to recover their voices.
Allison Dahlgren
Diana Damato has been an active AWA Affiliate since her training in 2013. She has had the privilege of leading ongoing groups since then and has participated in many additional AWA professional development workshops, numerous Write Around the World workshops, and has led and co-led one day and half-day retreats locally. Diana has a background in Journalism and writes freelance stories for local magazines. Her great love of seeking and discovering fresh new prompts for her groups inspired her to volunteer to lead this workshop.
Belinda Edwards is an experienced AWA workshop leader. She writes poetry and lyrical creative nonfiction and leads online writing workshops for Seniors in her community. Her current essay Grief Bundle was recently published in the Fall 2021 issue of the Santa Fe Literary magazine. This year Belinda served on the Social Justice and Anti-Racism, Write Around the World, and the Professional Development and Writing Retreat Committees. She currently lives in Santa Fe.
Kate Marshall Flaherty is a longtime AWA facilitator guiding StillPoint Writing and Poetry Editing Circles. She is currently Vice Chair of AWA (and amazed at the commitment of the PD Retreat committee to make this year’s retreat inspiring, invaluable and memorable 🙂 She is an award winning poet— but ANYONE can write a poem from the heart, so don’t be afraid to try your hand at spontaneous poetry.
Jennifer Elise Foerster is the author of two books of poetry, Leaving Tulsa (2013) and Bright Raft in the Afterweather (2018), and served as the Associate Editor of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (2020). Her poetry has recently appeared in POETRY London, The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Cutthroat, and other journals. She is the recipient of a NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford. Jennifer currently teaches at the Rainier Writing Workshop and is the Literary Assistant to the U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. She Foerster grew up living internationally, is of European (German/Dutch) and Mvskoke descent, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma. She lives in San Francisco.
Karen Gold is a social worker, educator and workshop facilitator with an interest in writing and well-being. She is currently an instructor for the narrative-based medicine digital certificate program at the University of Toronto. She has published in a variety of journals and anthologies including a recent reflective essay on poet Mary Oliver. Her musings can be found at Art of the Story.
Teresa Burns Gunther is the founder of Lakeshore Writers Workshop (2004) where she leads generative writing workshops, manuscript workshops, and offers developmental editing services. In her Manuscript Workshops, Teresa follows specific guidelines modeled after AWA protocols for a small circle of writers to respond constructively to each others writing while exploring the many aspects of craft. The goal is the development and completion of works in progress in a supportive circle of writers. See what writers are saying about Teresa and Lakeshore Writers on her website and on Yelp. Teresa’s work has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, most recently in: Mid-American Review, Next Tribe, Pure Slush Books,Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review, with new work forthcoming this winter from Pure Slush Books. Her fiction has been recognized in contests at Writer’s Digest, Glimmer Train Press, MAR, Cutthroat, Narrative, Tupelo Quarterly, New Millennium Writings and many more. Her story collection, “Hold Off the Night” was a Finalist for the 2019 Orison Book Prize, and her interviews and book reviews have appeared in Zyzzyva, Bookslut, Glimmer Train Press, and Literary Mama to name a few.
Kate Hymes is an experienced led AWA workshop leader, and a poet. As Wallkill Valley Writers, she has led writing workshops for over 20 years. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, most recently mightier: Poets for Social Justice, published by Calling All Poets, 2020. Kate served on the AWA Board until 2020. She lives and writes in New Paltz, NY.
Desiree R. Kannel is a writer and teacher from Southern California. She has a teaching credential from California State University Long Beach and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the author of Lucky John, published in 2020 by Black Rose Writing. Her short stories have appeared online and in print anthologies. After she became an AWA facilitator in 2010, she began Rose Writers Workshops and leads workshops, retreats, and classes throughout the year. Desiree also worked as an Artist in the Classroom for Angles Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, California where she was a guest creative writing teacher in 5th grade classrooms throughout Los Angeles County. Desiree now resides in San Antonio, Texas with her cat Malcolm.
Barbara Krasner
Judith Lagana is an experienced Affiliate of Amherst Writers & Artists. She is a founding co-editor of River Heron Review and River Heron Writers’ Workshops. Her successful career as the head of Art, Music, and English departments with the largest high school district in New Jersey included designing and assessing writing strategies and programs. She’s taught writing, with an emphasis on the creative, to adults and children of all ages and skill levels. Judith blogs about writing and the writer’s life at the Great Blue Heron. Her poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, Naugatuck River Review, and the Paterson Literary Review, among others.
Kimberly Lee is an editor and contributor at Literary Mama, with previous experience on the staffs of F(r)iction and Carve. A graduate of Stanford University and UC Davis School of Law, she is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists and SoulCollage®️ workshop facilitator and serves on the faculty of San Diego Writers Ink and The Loft Literary Center. Kimberly’s work has appeared in Minerva Rising, LA Parent, Fresh Ink, Words and Whispers, ThePrompt, The Sun, Toyon, the Ekphrastic Review, Wow! Women on Writing, and Calliope, amongst others. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children and recently completed her first novel.
Jayelle Lindsay completed her AWA facilitator training after attending an inspiring writing retreat facilitated by Pat Schneider and Sue Reynolds. She has subsequently combined her love of words with her years as a physiotherapist to offer numerous workshops – Writing from the Body: Moving Words – using the body as a prompt to enrich and guide the pen on the page. She has participated in Write Around the World and continues to strengthen her facilitation skills by attending AWA conferences and classes with other AWA facilitators.
In 2020, Sinéad MacDevitt trained to become an Amherst Writers & Artists Affiliate to enable her to lead workshops for people of all ages. Her background in Speech & Drama teaching to Children inspired her to progress to Creative Writing. Since 2008, she has facilitated Creative Writing workshops for Children (9 to 12 years of age). In 2018, she started to run workshops for Young Adults (13 year olds). The workshops included craft focused exercises as well as various genres and themes. Since September 2020, she started to use the AWA method with Children via zoom.
Maria Marchese is an English and French teacher for the Toronto District School Board in Ontario, Canada. In addition to her responsibilities as a Curriculum Leader she runs extra-curricular writing workshops for emerging writers. She has been trained in the AWA Method. She lives and writes in Newmarket, Ontario.
Julie Mariouw became a certified AWA workshop leader in 2016 and, since then, has led workshops in Ann Arbor, MI, through Wellspring Writing Workshops. In March 2020 Julie put all of her workshops online. Julie is fascinated by the healing power of writing and the role of the physical body in writing. She uses metaphor, the senses, polarity, and physical movement in her workshops. She is currently working on a novel and has had many articles published on the writing process. To find out more about Julie’s work visit her website or check out her Facebook page.
Consuelo Meux, Ph.D. is a Certified Creativity Coach, consultant in Nonprofit Governance, and has a doctorate in Human and Organization Systems from Fielding Graduate University. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, she has traveled extensively assisting others in their business and professional growth. Her publications include a chapter in The Leadership Challenge Activities Book (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and Peregrine (XIX). In addition to creative nonfiction, Consuelo enjoys internet-based writing through Search Engine Optimized (SEO) techniques, Kindle, print-on-demand, and blogging. Consuelo studied with Patricia Schneider at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California and later became an Amherst Writers & Artists Affiliate, certified to lead workshops in the AWA method, as described in Writing Alone & With Others by Pat Schneider, Oxford University Press.
Kathy Moore is a teacher, writer and lover of literature who attended her first AWA workshop in 2014 and found her life transformed. She became a certified AWA instructor in 2017 and since then has led workshops at The Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, NY, virtually via Zoom, and as part of Write Around the World. She also works as an English as a Second Language teacher in the New York City public school system where she uses the AWA method both in her classroom and as the model for a creative writing club she founded for third, fourth and fifth graders. In addition, she is a faculty member in the TESOL Certificate program in the School of Continuing Education at Hunter College.
Facilitator Madge O’Callaghan is an award-winning radio documentary maker with an M.A. in Creative Writing from DCU. She achieved Gold for her first radio documentary, “My Uncle Jack” at the World Festival of Radio in New York. She received her M.A. in Creative Writing when she retired from her day job of working with young people with mental health issues. She produced her first collection of poetry, Positive Deviance – a collection of social justice poetry – when studying for her M.A. and was offered a publishing deal by Mercier Press based on her M.A. thesis. An accredited facilitator with Amherst Writers and Artists, Madge facilitates creative writing groups for people with ME, older people, survivors of domestic violence and people in addiction recovery. She has some short stories and poems published.
Annette Peizer has been facilitating AWA workshops since 2015 when she was first trained in Malibu. She has facilitated workshops at two shelters for homeless women and families, community centers, and privately online. Currently, she is facilitating with North Seattle College, Continuing Education and at a Seattle community center. A graduate in Creative Writing from University of California, Irvine, University of Washington, and a teaching certificate from Antioch University, she has taught in community and private colleges in Seattle, Los Angeles, Jerusalem, and Bratislava. Her writing has been published in local and national magazines, and she has recently published a travel memoir, and is currently working on her second book. Annette lives with her husband in Seattle, and she’s the proud mama of one daughter who is attending college nearby.
Carmen Palmer is a bilingual teacher and writer living on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. She holds an MFA in Professional Writing, and an MAT in Teaching, Special Education. In addition to conducting online workshops using the AWA method, Carmen co-curates and produces a monthly poetry reading series on Zoom with her writing mentor, the poet Cecilia Woloch. Carmen’s current interests of note include: Mental Health/Wellness, Tarot, Buddhism, and Permaculture.
Katie E. Peckham writes and wonders in Los Angeles, California. She runs a company called Dark Horse Writing (darkhorsewriting.org) which offers generative writing workshops following the AWA method. Katie also writes for and manages the website of The Fullerton Collective (fullertoncollective.com), a local community-based organization that works in the interest of the marginalized in local school districts to establish better awareness and more well-informed curriculum so that students of all backgrounds can understand and engage in constructive conversations about systemic racism. She has an MA in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, and enjoys competing in triathlons and building pillow forts with her children.
Vicki Pinkerton was trained as an AWA facilitator in 2015. She had been teaching writing for years and found that her involvement in AWA really upped her game. During Covid, all her writing classes moved online, and she began to write more than ever in groups. Through this work she started to understand her passion and writing to be the arms with which she could carry out her community and earth centered activism.
Dorothy Rice is an author, developmental editor and writing workshop facilitator. After raising five children and retiring from a career in environmental protection, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert, at 60. She is the author of two memoirs – GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK (Otis Books, 2019) and THE RELUCTANT ARTIST (Shanti Arts, 2015), and editor of the new anthology TWENTY TWENTY: 43 Stories From A Year Like No Other (Stories on Stage Sacramento, 2021). Dorothy works for 916 Ink, Sacramento’s arts-based creative writing nonprofit that provides workshops for area youth, grades 3-12, and serves as Managing Editor of the nonfiction and arts journal Under the Gum Tree. Find links to many of her published essays and stories at www.dorothyriceauthor.com.
Sue Reynolds wears many hats. She is currently Chair of AWA. She and her partner James Dewar, (also an AWA Affiliate) operate two publishing companies: Piquant Press, a traditional micro press for poetry and non-fiction, and Stone’s Throw Publication Services, a company that ethically helps authors self publish. Between these two companies, they have published over 350 titles in the last 10 years.
Sharon Robino-West is From Omaha, Nebraska, holds an MFA in Leadership and Organizational Change, an is certified in the AWA method. She is a Veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and currently works for the VA. Sharon facilitates Healing Writing Workshops throughout the country. She was awarded Outstanding Veteran Advocate in 2014 by Civic Nebraska, was nominated as Tribute to Women Honoree by the WCA in 2018. Most recently, Robino-West was honored by the Center for Women Veterans as a 2021 Woman Trailblazer for her work with Women Veterans and survivors of Military Sexual Trauma. She was featured in “The Warrior’s Pen” discussing the importance of writing and the Veteran experience. Her piece “Into the Unknown” was read in performance by Alfre Woodard at the 2016 Gala for the Writers Guild Initiative of America East in New York City, where she was also a keynote speaker at the event. She performed a TedXOmaha talk called “Healing the Unspeakable” in 2017, and most recently published several pieces in the Nebraska Warrior Writers Anthology published in November of 2020.
A writer and activist, Jen Sage-Robison (she/her/hers) has facilitated AWA writing workshops with women, essential workers and parents of disabled kids. Jen has worked at Westport Writers Workshop, Wisdom House and her own www.kitchentablewriters.com. She has a special interest in the Queer and Disabled Communities and is a COVID-19 long-hauler. Jen lives in Gaylordsville, Connecticut.
Winner of The Writers’ Union of Canada’s 2016 short prose contest, Deepam Wadds’ short fiction and poetry have been featured in literary journals and anthologies, including Room and carte blanche magazines. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers, Deepam is certified in the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method of writing workshop facilitation. She is Past President of the Writers’ Community of Simcoe County (WCSC) and a proud member of the Writers Community of York Region (WCYR) and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA). She leads AWA workshops and retreats in Canada, internationally, and online.
Aaron Zimmerman