The parent category for all the different workshops–Amherst Writers and Artists, in-person, online, retreats, and Finishing School.
The Method The Amherst Writers and Artists Philosophy Workshop Events Calendar, in-person, online, worldwide Find a workshop in your area Pat Schneider, founder of AWA Pat Schneider on Wikipedia Pat Schneider bio on the Poetry Foundation website A really good poem: Pat’s “Instructions for the Journey” Pat Schneider: “We send the children of the poor to fight the children of the poor.” (In...
I’ve scheduled an event at Manny’s in the Mission District in the evening of Tuesday, October 14. The event is on EventBrite. HOW COME? Well, Norma and I had a publishing business in San Francisco. I wrote the books and we shipped them out of our garage. It worked really great. Then we moved to Italy. I put the remaining inventory in a storage locker in Daly City. That was nine years...
Hey there! Curious about the writing workshops? You can join at any time by clicking on the lovely picture of me below: [email protected] email write “Workshops” in the subject line. WhatsApp is better: +39 334 725 8715. Maybe try the U.S. number: 415 340-9108. The best time to call me from America is when you wake up in the morning. Because I live in Italy. The background: I...
we sold our house and came to Italy I almost tossed the laptop but changed my mind went to see Sy in North Carolina came back and kept writing did a workshop in the Mission District came back and kept writing laughed with Pat Schneider in Connecticut came back and kept writing spent time in a French chateau came back and kept writing Now taking reservations for the May 16-23, 2026 “How To...
Quickly sign up for one session $42 US Worldwide. Via Zoom. Scheduled Times: Sundays: 9am–11am PST–West Coast 10am-12 noon MST–Mountain 11am-1pm CST–Central 12 noon-2pm EST–Eastern 17.00-19.00 GMT–UK, Ireland 18.00-20.00 CET–Italy, Europe Powered by Or take it one month at a time at $149.00 USD Or try a drop-in session to see how you like...
I have learned a lot in the last seven years about caring for the writing self and the creative soul. Some of the things I have learned have helped other people, too. Doing the Amherst Writers and Artists method has become a way of life. Many people I have met while doing this have become dear friends whose occasional appearances are now cherished events in the week. The role of teacher is one I...
In Finishing School we meet once a week to help each other finish creative projects, using the method outlined in the book Finishing School written by me and Danelle Morton. We work together in a structured way that protects individual creative freedom and supports personal insight. At our first session, we ask you to tell us about your dream. That is, we ask you to describe the project you are...
Come to Castiglion Fiorentino May 12-22, 2022 for TEN! days of writing, thinking, eating, drinking, walking, talking, relaxing, exploring! I’ll be there at beautiful Residence Le Santucce offering daily Amherst Writers and Artists workshops in this charming and ancient Tuscan hill town. Why Italy? Why Le Santucce? My wife, Norma, and I looked long and hard before settling on Residence Le...
[Note: This is pretty much a literal transcription of the podcast.]–ct Good morning, or evening, this is Cary Tennis, it’s Thursday, April 29, 2021, and today I’m going to do things slightly differently because this is the story behind the workshops and the book, that is, the Finishing School workshops. So how it really began is like this: In 2004 I was finishing up an article...
Wouldn’t you feel great if you finally got it done? Finishing School is a way to get things done when nothing else has worked. It doesn’t matter what the thing is. Finishing isn’t about the mechanics of the task. It’s about the process, or method, of finishing. It’s very simple. It is easy to learn. If you have tried scheduling, will power, time management, getting...
In Finishing School people come together to help each other stay on schedule with creative tasks and get projects finished. And we always begin every new session by asking each participant to say a little about themselves and about the project. So this is a little online form to gather some information that will help us work together more efficiently when we start. That’s all we need for...
This story is all in the comments below.–CT
Dear Cary, I remember an afternoon, during my senior year of college, in a tiny hamlet in upstate New York, sitting at my desk, and writing a paper for one of my classes. I do not remember the class, or the subject of the paper. I do remember tip-tap-typing away, focused, with open books lying about on the desk and floor, passages marked with pencil, fluorescent sticky notes protruding from pages...
In my Amherst Writers and Artists-style workshops sometimes we write using only one-syllable words. It’s really really fun! So I’m thinking up prompts for this “Writing is Delicious” workshop we’re having in October and thinking about using one-syllable words only to describe food, and … We can’t say the word for how we can just have one of them, because it has...
Break barriers and find fresh insights in a safe, relaxed setting Unlock powerful creative ideas and unleash deep emotions in a weekly online workshop led by acclaimed columnist, author and teacher Cary Tennis Every Sunday online at these times (I will send you the link): USA West Coast 09:00 am USA Mountain Time 10:00 am USA Central Time 11:00 AM USA East Coast Time 12:00 noon London Time...
“A must for every writer and artist of any kind, Finishing School belongs on the bookshelf right next to Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing. I can’t wait to tell every writer I know to buy it.”—Cole Kazdin, four-time Emmy-winning television news producer, writer, and performer “Cary Tennis and Danelle Morton accomplish something remarkable in Finishing School—an actually...
Standing in the living room of the house we’d just renovated at considerable expense, the magnitude of what I’d done, debt-wise, was crashing in and I just thought, This is a beautiful space! People ought to come in here and create in this space! Then began this life-changing endeavor, the workshops. The thing is, it was a dream, it was a gesture of solidarity with other writers, and...
I just read this Alif Batuman piece in n+1 from a few years back in which I found a kinship reading of “craft.” So let me get something off my chest, counterproductive and humiliating as it may be: Craft is awful. I hate craft! Instead of standing out there in the hot sun polishing and polishing your doomed anachronistic prose beauty why not instead, today! unleash the wild craftless being...
As I sit here (“As I sit here”? “As I sit here”! “As I sit here” is one of the worst, most clichéd and overused beginnings in the history of first-person narrative … and yet … it is germane, as I am indeed sitting here! So …) as I was saying, as I sit here on the floor in my little room in this little medieval hill town of Castiglion...
Dear … I thought of you just now. I am sitting in this renovated 13th-century Italian convent between Rome and Florence, a short walk up from the train station, and your face drifted into view. There were a lot of people here for ten days but they all left on the train today. I suppose suddenly being alone was one reason I thought of you. There had been little time to really think. Now I am...
Is it the restraint of love? Is it reverence? Amid the effervescent joy of buildings that look like music; the muscular formality of a 50-foot-high gate on an ancient wall; the fleeting intoxication of wafting jasmine: Why, exactly, amid these things, do I feel the contrary impulses to stop and snap an iPhoto yet not snap an iPhoto? It’s reverence is what it is, no? Reverential surrender...
Kids are beautiful in cities. They ain’t been ground up yet. There’s harmonicas. After grueling San Francisco-Paris-Florence flight we ride the tiny Pensione Crocini elevator to the tall windows on the courtyard, wash, nap, then espresso at the cafe and luxuriating in the beautiful visual rhythm of the Italianate style, the beautiful rhythm of spring on the Arno, which is rushing past...
I felt so strongly about reaching out to San Francisco writers at the Poets & Writers Live event, such a strong sense of localness that I found myself staying up late the night before writing this long screed, pouring out my heart in the matter of what it’s like to be in San Francisco today, having moved from the Mission to the Outer Sunset, having seen Salon.com move its operations to...
Dear Cary – My creative doubts have been simmering like a mild poison in my heart and mind for years and I’m starting to hate myself. I need to do something about it. Nine years ago I was living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. By age 31 I had accidentally become a loudmouth, performance-arty, punk-rocky type person. I say accidentally because as a dull-witted, privileged...
I sent a piece to “Fence” and they said it wasn’t for them. “Thanks. OK. That’s cool. I can handle it. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like I’m going to go out and cut myself or anything.” A meditation on submission and rejection ——– Original Message ——– Subject: RE: [Fence] Wading in Shallow Water with Architects From:...
Would you like to come to the Chateau du Pin writing retreat with a well-planned route that is easy to follow? My wife Norma is a great planner, plus she reads French, German and Italian, so she has figured it all out for you. First: Would you like to fly into Paris, or into Nantes? The advantage of flying into Paris is that it’s Paris. Paris is an amazing, life-changing city. Nothing can...
But writing in a magnificent French château surrounded by 300 acres of topiary, formal gardens, parks, woodland trails and vineyards can’t hurt. Maybe you’re perfectly content writing by yourself day after day in your kitchen on that old table, or at your cramped desk in the spare bedroom. Fine. À chacun son goût. You can find us this September at Le Château du Pin, a private French...
Come to Guest House Retreat and Conference Center in Chester, Connecticut, May 16 through 19, 2014, for four days writing, thinking, talking and exploring new inner territory in a safe and supportive environment. I’ll be there, along with Amherst Writers and Artists founder Pat Schneider, offering daily Amherst Writers and Artists workshops in the beautiful Connecticut countryside. For...
The Amherst Writers and Artists workshop method helps people write. It’s that simple. •It helps beginners and it helps professionals. •Plus it’s fun! How does it work? Well, I’ve been leading AWA workshops for over fifteen years and what I’ve seen in those seven years is people coming in who may have written a lot in the past and got stuck, or are currently writing but...
A super-big thanks! to all the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop leaders, friends and fans who have spread the word about our upcoming four-day AWA workshop/retreat at the Guest House in Chester, Connecticut! (And if you know somebody who might like to know, please feel free to pass this along.) Big thanks go to Jan Nielsen of the Universalist Church in West Hartford, Ct., Patricia Bender of...
Note: Occasionally here on carytennis.com we publish raw first drafts written to prompts in our Amherst Writers and Artists workshops; they are not finished pieces, and so are not open to comment, but nevertheless are often interesting to read, and stand as evidence of the kinds of creative acts that occur more or less spontaneously, and often with tremendous energy, in the workshops. Click here...
First, I’d like to give a shout out to the other featured writers, some of whom I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting at Cary’s first Creative Getaway. It’s good to see their faces again and inspiring to witness the success they’ve achieved with their writing. Going to the Creative Getaway and meeting Cary and Norma changed my life. I knew I wanted to do more with my writing but I didn’t...
Back in 2008, I had the good fortune to be introduced to Cary Tennis. I was trying to make sense of a novel length story I had been working on for two years. I was self-conscious and insecure about what I had produced, and those insecurities were all but squeezing the life out of my creativity. I didn’t believe I qualified as a writer, but a story came to me with such compelling force that I...
by Kyoko Ide Revolution. I feel such resistance towards it. Why? I feel fear, I get tense, I feel like I have to find the right, proper words and expressions that wouldn’t offend anybody, so that my revolutionary self wouldn’t get criticized. But that’s not revolutionary at all. How come I feel like I have to protect myself and guard myself when I try to let my revolutionary...