Susan Wadds’ debut novel, “What the Living Do,” won the 2024 Canadian Book Club Award for fiction, was a 2024 Indies finalist, and was shortlisted for the 2024 Fred Kerner Book Award. In 2016, her short fiction won Writers Union of Canada’s Prose Contest. Susan’s work has appeared in various publications, including carteblanche, The Blood Pudding, Room, and Waterwheel Review. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers and a proud member of The Writers Union of Canada and The Canadian Authors Association, Susan is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) workshop facilitator. She has lived in four Canadian provinces as well as India, France, and Italy. She’s sort of settled down and currently lives on a quiet river on Williams Treaty land in traditional Anishinaabe territory with an odd assortment of humans and cats.
Utilizing handouts and a PowerPoint presentation, I speak about the history, method, principles, benefits, and practices of the Amherst Writers & Artists method of writing workshop facilitation.
An optional hands-on exercise demonstrates the power of the method.
This workshop is for writers at all levels of confidence and expertise. Craft exercises and varied prompts give each writer both inspiration and freedom to write the words they need to write.
Using the Amherst Writers & Artists method of writing workshop facilitation, participants write, read, & listen deeply while painlessly honing their writing craft.
In this presentation, I introduce the AWA (Amherst Writers & Artists Method of writing workshop facilitation. The method provides a safe, supportive environment for students to explore different ways to tell the story or write the poem they want to write.
Using visual prompts and poems to stimulate creativity, writers are free to write in whatever style they choose. Those who choose to read their freshly generated work will receive feedback highlighting its strengths, and commentary on what is memorable.
