Listening Between the Lines: New Writing from AWA’s 2025 “Write Around the World”
What happens when we slow down, listen more deeply, and write without pressure? In two recent Amherst Writers & Artists workshops, that question led to powerful discoveries on the page. Facilitated by Karen Rosenberg as part of AWA’s Write Around the World initiative, these sessions brought together a small circle of writers for two generative experiences: “Awakening Our Senses: Writing with Vivid Detail” and “Quiet Voices, Deeper Truths: Cultivating Nuance in a Divided World.”
Writers were invited into a space of reflection, presence, and imagination—no pressure to revise or perform. Below are selections from these workshops. These are first drafts, lightly edited, shared in the spirit of trust and deep listening.
Packing List 2025
—Denise Jessup
For the journey, we will need
courageous companions
to trek beside us,
or in front of us,
or needing us to lead,
but always with us in solidarity.
We will need the clean,
clear water of truth
to douse fires of rage we must travel through
and to soothe our throats,
ragged from speaking out.
We’ll bring canteens to carry our water,
as trusted sources will often be lacking.
We will need protective glasses
allowing us to safely observe acts of horror.
But let us also bring sleep masks,
that we may turn away
to rest, regain our passion, renew our verve.
Most of all, we will need our hearts,
our tender and fierce hearts,
woven of sinew and steel,
hearts we can trust
to know the way.
Awakening the Senses Workshop, prompt: Hard Candy
After the Memorial Service
–Steve Ng
The other thing
in the white packet
you’ve taken with you,
besides the token quarter
is
the Mrs. See’s solid
truffle chocolate
in the lettered brown
wrapper, twirled ends
ready to be unwound,
the hard sweet nugget
within to be popped
into the open mouth,
falling onto the curled
tongue, mind saying,
“sweet, sweet,” the
taste to carry, the
last breath of a body.
Giving out white packets is a Chinese custom at funerals & memorial services.
Awakening the Senses Workshop, prompt: from memory or imagination, write about a school lunch (or a holiday meal)
Armadillo Burger
–Steve Ng
On the black chalkboard is written “Tuesday
Hamburger” but the waffled imprint
on the dry gray patty leads one
to wonder about the origin of today’s
lunch being served in the high school cafeteria.
You can see someone stopping their
car, a white sedan, opening
the driver’s side door and their
feet, one following the other,
leather clad, in a light brown,
stepping onto the black pavement, peeling
off the scaly gray armored
carcass lying on the white stripes
painted on the nubby, well-travelled asphalt.
And now presented to you
on the greasy plastic divided
tray, with the sodden legumes,
the mouth-drying slice of bread
with the white square of tiny slab
of butter – is lunch. You
know what it is.
“Quiet Voices…” Workshop, prompt: “Quiet always lives inside noise” — Naomi Shihab Nye, “My Wisdom”
The Quiet and the Not-Quiet
–Steve Ng
At first there was quiet
which was then accompanied
by not-quiet. When the not-quiet
surrounded quiet – it was called noise.
And the beings who lived in quiet — were
given mouths – for which to make
more noise, and given ears – for which
to hear this ever increasing noise.
They could not give their
mouths back – they could
not stay silent.
They could not give their
ears back – they could
not hear silence.
But they still had their
hearts – they could
feel them inside.
Was it silence beating
when they pressed their
ears against the chests
of others? It was not silence,
but it was not noise. It was
what they could live with.
And now, I wish that
this is what they all
did: with ears to chests,
form one long chain
extending through all the
beings; a line unbroken.
And right now, I will do
what I can: I will press
my head onto the chest
of another, and listen:
my silence; their making
the softest of noise.
Untitled
–Carol Lee Smith
My boy opened his hands to reveal
two cameo-shaped seashells,
one speckled, one dark and chipped,
one in each soft palm.
Under the hot afternoon sun his four-year-old blue eyes widened in surprise,
the thrill of something brand new to know.
There was even more to his chalky treasures with their prickly edges
transported in anticipation across the sand.
These are for you! He smiled.