Reposting a message I received from the folks at the Pacific School of Religion (I might not have looked there for transformative writing experiences, but just look what I would have missed!) If you’ve never had a chance to write with Pat Schneider, and you can make this workshop, I’d encourage you to sign up right this minute — it’ll change your life.
best!
Jen
Comments Off on Amazing writing opportunities at PSR this summer!
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged pat schneider, resources, writing workshops
This is something I wrote up awhile ago, for the Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) facilitator’s community, and I wanted to share it with you all, here, in honor of the National Day on Writing:
As a student in the TLA program at Goddard College who was looking for a way to use writing as a healing tool, the AWA writing workshop method broke down the door for me. Here was a simple, deeply powerful and ethical-by-design method for writing in community about any topic you might wish to write about, but in particular any topic that is painful, complicated, or raw.
The AWA method we learned in the trainings that Pat Schneider led at her farmhouse in 2001 and 2002 (the latter, an Amherst Writers and Artists (AWAI) training, was co-facilitated by members of the original Chicopee Writers), revolutionized my thinking and brought me a powerful sense of peace. 
At the time, Goddard (where I was pursuing my MA) was undergoing an accreditation review and was at risk of closing – after my first AWA training, I was no longer afraid of what might happen if Goddard closed (which it didn’t): I’d found the structure for my life’s work. Here was a resolutely non-hierarchical and safe container in which all people, regardless of their relationship to the word “writer,” could explore in words their own complicated and beautiful stories.
Comments Off on The ethical heart of my practice: AWA
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Tagged AWA, expressive arts, pat schneider, transformative writing, writing workshops
As I mentioned on Monday (here, you remember), I’m going to post longer, more well-thought-out (maybe!) answers to the questions that Britt Bravo posed to me during our Arts and Healing Network podcast conversation last week. Here’s our second installation!
The second question on the list:
2. On your site, you describe [your workshops] as “transformative writing” workshops. How are they transformative?
Transformative writing is writing that changes you in the process of its creation. A dictionary gives one definition of transform as “to change completely for the better.” Another definition: “to convert one form of energy to another.”
Posted in LearnMore
Tagged AWA, erotic writing, expressive arts, pat schneider, TLA, transformative writing, writing process
As I mentioned earlier in the week (in this post), I’m going to post longer, more well-thought-out (maybe!) answers to the questions that Britt Bravo posed to me during our Arts and Healing Network podcast conversation last week.
The first question on the list:
1. What are the Writing Ourselves Whole workshops?
Most basically, Writing Ourselves Whole offers transformative writing workshops, using the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop method, in the service of transforming trauma and/or struggles around sexuality into art, and creating spaces in which individuals may come to recognize the artist/writer within. (whew!)
Posted in LearnMore
Tagged about us, AWA, expressive arts, pat schneider, writing ourselves whole