Workshops

Weekly Workshops Currently Online

Maureen leads ten-week workshops that meet weekly on Thursday evenings and Friday mornings in Amherst, Massachusetts. Workshops are currently online.

Beginners of all levels welcome!

Writing Full Tilt workshops honor the playfulness needed to shape illusive energies into vivid images and characters. They also support and guide the craft necessary to hone first writing into a poem or story that can stand on its own in the world.

Whether you are a writer who desires nothing more than to put your rhythms and plots on paper, or one who looks to polish your work so that it can be sent out for publication, these workshops offer the place to generate new work and then develop it for a wider audience.

Ten-week sessions begin:
Thursday March 4 – May 6, 2021 currently full
Friday March 5 – May 7, 2021 currently full

Eight-week sessions begin:  
Monday March 22 – May 10 2021
Tuesday March 30 – May 18 2021 

Manuscript Review Included    

All workshop are currently online

To learn more, contact me at maureen@maureenbjones.com 

“Forty years ago I earned a B.A. in English from an Ivy League university. I took four semesters of creative writing courses. For my senior project, I wrote a novella under the mentorship of a person who subsequently became a successful TV writer and producer. Three years ago, I joined Maureen’s “Writing Full Tilt” workshops. I say with complete conviction that my writing improved more in two ‘semesters’ with WFT than it did in four years of college.”

 

– Rich Lovelace

The workshop process and the learning that happens is based on supportive, encouraging responses. The best learning happens when our confidence grows through being told what we are doing well and hearing what can be strengthened without shaming.

 

 

“Maureen creates a setting that allows me to take chances in my writing. I appreciate the creative energy of the people in our group and their encouragement. Meeting with this group and this group of writers once a week is the encouragement I need to discipline myself to write every day.”

 

– Nancy C.

“The AWA method of writing builds trust in one’s own voice and in the sharing of that voice with others. I have written with several workshop leaders in this method, including several with Pat Schneider, its founder, but no workshop leader has surpassed Maureen Buchanan Jones in the quality and consistency of her listening and support. Not only is she insightful, identifying the intelligent heart and inner meaning of the work, but she is able to reflect it back to the writer in a way that nurtures future creative risk-taking and satisfies the deep need to be understood. she has an uncanny ability to stay present to the work. If her attention ever wanders, I have never caught it; she takes in every piece of writing with the same loving witness, and can feed back, not only her overall sense of the work, but also the specific language used-with remarkable appreciative detail. She came highly recommended to me, when Pat Schneider took a hiatus in her teaching, and I understand why. As Pat said, “Maureen is most intimate with the soul of the AWA Method.” and that method fosters intimate and courageous writing. She is a magnificent writing companion.”

– Court Dorsey