by Christine Swint

If you are aware that you need to be brave, you are probably on the threshold of writing something that matters.

Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others (2003, pg. 172)

During the last week in April I attended an AWA writing-group leadership training with poet Patricia Lee Lewis at The Crossings in Austin, Texas. Patricia, along with writers Celia Jeffries and Charles MacInerney, coached twelve of us in the art of leading a group in the Amherst Writers and Artists method of writing. Patricia and Celia both worked for many years with Pat Schneider, founder of AWA, writing in Pat’s weekly group held in her home in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Pat Schneider developed the AWA method after finishing her MFA. She and her colleagues gathered ideas from the writing process movement, which she traces to Dorothea Brande’s work, Becoming a Writer, Peter Elbow’s Everyone Can Write, Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones and Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (2003, pg.  144).

Besides learning the nuts and bolts of starting a writing group or workshop, we wrote together. That’s what the AWA process is about. A typical writing session starts with a brief meditation to center the mind and relax, and then is followed by a simple prompt. The writing is timed. We wrote for shorter lengths of time because we were learning the art of managing a group, for eight to twenty minutes per prompt.

The writing that came out of us was amazing. We wrote outdoors, immersed in the fresh breeze of the Texas hill country and the scent of wildflowers. We wrote about whatever came to our minds, and then afterwards read our work aloud to the other members. Since this was fresh writing, newly born, the members responded only to what was strong in the piece. AWA encourages holding critical responses for when the writer has prepared a typed manuscript.

Another important guideline of the AWA process is to keep all writing confidential. As one of our writers suggested, “what happens in the circle stays in the circle.” Also, we treat all writing as fiction, unless the author wants the members to treat it as autobiography.

When responding to a writer’s work, we talk about the narrator, or the character, never attributing the events of the piece to the writer. Patricia compared it to reading a Stephen King novel. Do we think that Stephen King actually experienced all the grisly tales of his stories? Even if the writer uses the first person, we don’t assume the author actually experienced the events.

This is the one aspect of the group writing process that gives writers the most difficulty, but it’s one of the most important parts. Otherwise the writing group enters the murky territory of group therapy, without a therapist! AWA sticks to treating the work as fiction to keep the writers safe.

How will I include this training in my writing life? I’d like to begin a small group in my home, and maybe offer workshops a few times a year in my city.

Pat Schneider brought her method to women living in a housing project near her town. Out of that work grew The Chicopee Workshop for Low-Income Women, as well as a DVD and book of their work with Pat. Many of the original members of this group have gone on to earn college degrees, and even MFAs.

One of the writers in the Austin training, Ellen Reich, says, “I plan to approach a local organization, the Charlotte Coalition for Social Justice, to explore possibilities of offering this writing workshop to teens. The CCSJ’s mission is to bridge differences and foster understanding among different populations. I also hope to offer a group to our local Room at the Inn – a residence for unwed, pregnant women who have little to no outside support.”

What experiences have you had in group writing? Do you belong to a critique group, and if so, do you write together, or only respond to typed manuscripts? What do you think about bringing writing and poetry to underserved populations?

Schneider, Pat (2003). Writing Alone and With Others. New York: Oxford University Press.