The mission of AWA is to support the voices of established and emerging writers, to free silenced and marginalized voices, and to promote respect for the artist in all writers using the method developed by founder Pat Schneider and descried in her book Writing Alone and With Others.
Pat Schneider was a teacher, author, poet, editor, playwright and she also wrote libretti. She established the AWA methodology while working with women in a housing project in Chicopee, Massachusetts. She wrote a dozen books, including five volumes of poetry, and one in her 70s called How the Light Gets In – Writing as a Spiritual Practice.
Schneider’s libretto, “The Lament of Michal,” was performed in Carnegie Hall. Her poetry has been read nationally and her plays have been performed in over three hundred productions. Florentine Films made a film about her work with women in low-income housing, “Tell Me Something I Can’t Forget” in 1992.
Today’s AWA workshop approach rises from that legacy of working with the under-served, the marginalized and the oppressed. You can find the AWA method in elementary, high school, and college classrooms, in churches, hospitals, prisons, women’s shelters, soup kitchens and other inner city community projects and hundreds of other environments.
The Founder’s Philosophy
“Whether your purpose for writing is artistic expression, communication with friends and family, the healing of the inner life, or achieving public recognition for your art – the foundation is the same: the claiming of yourself as an artist/writer and the strengthening of your writing voice through practice, study, and helpful response from other writers.” – Pat Schneider
A superb profile on Pat Schneider on LiteraryMama.com here