Instructors

Each AWA Group Leadership Training Session is led by at least two of  the following experienced AWA workshop leaders: Maureen Buchanan Jones, Kate Hymes, Karen Buchinsky, Bisi Ideraabdullah, Jan Haag, and Mary Tuchscherer.  Often these sessions include other instructors or workshop leaders who have experience with particular under-served populations.  Pat Schneider attends a portion of those training programs when it is possible for her to do so, and she leads a Post-Certificate Training annually in her home in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Pat Schneider is the founder of Amherst Writers & Artists and the author of Writing Alone & with Others (Oxford University Press, 2003) as well as books of poetry and prose. For over 20 years, Pat has led writing workshops and retreats in her home in Amherst, MA and at other sites across the country and in Ireland and France. Along with the members of her original Chicopee workshop for low-income women, she developed the training program to teach people how to lead workshops using the AWA method. As of this date, more than 800 people from all across the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Denmark, Japan, Malawi, Singapore, and other countries have taken the training, and many currently lead writing workshops in a wide range of settings. (For more about Pat Schneider, please go to www.patschneider.com.)