Welcome to SWWS! Isak Dinesen said it best when she said, “The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.” The Salt Water Writing Studio is a Houston, Texas based Limited Liability Company established in 2013 by Carrie Hirdes. Carrie is an AWA Affiliate, certified to lead workshops in the AWA method as described in Writing Alone & With Others by Pat Schneider, Oxford University Press. She facilitates unique writing workshops and groups for writers of all genres and skill levels. The supportive environment cultivated during these writing sessions fosters the development of each writer’s original voice.
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“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, Writing Alone and With Others
–In each writing group or workshop writers meet for 3-hour weekly sessions for six to eight weeks, or a one-day six-hour session. What makes these writing sessions so unique is that writers are given prompts and then immediately write for set lengths of time. Once the writing time has ended, writers will (be encouraged to) read these very exciting and vulnerable first thoughts out loud to the group. The group then, following AWA standards, responds in a positive, affirming manner, finding what works, what’s strong, and what stays with us. Paramount to the success of this method is treating all work as fiction. This allows everyone to stay focused on the writing, not the writer.
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“…writing together and reading aloud to one another brand-new work and experiencing having that work received
only with affirmation of what stays with the listeners, revolutionizes the teaching and learning experience. Everyone learns
by listening and by withholding judgement until the proper time, when the work is presented in manuscript form. Experienced and
beginning writers teach each other. We learn from one another. Often, the least formally trained writers are the freshest,
if they can be helped to write without affectation in the voices that they use with friends and family.”
Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others
Now Offering Individual On-line Writing Sessions!
In these 30-minute sessions you will receive a timed-prompt prior to our meeting; this will allow us to jump right in. We will each read our work and respond within the AWA guidelines. Thanks to Google Hangout, Skype, and FaceTime you can be any where in the world! I would love the opportunity to write with you.