Authentic Writing

Authentic Writing founded by Fred Poole in 1993 creates a studio for writers to discover and explore their most important stories, a place to experiment and become the writer that only you can be.

Since that time he has led workshops every week in Woodstock and regularly in Manhattan. He has offered Authentic Writing in colleges and retreat centers throughout the Northeast, including each year at Omega Institute.

Fred Poole was a writer and journalist for over thirty years, traveling throughout the world into dangerous territories – from Haiti to Cuba, from Beirut to Angola, from Bangkok to Kuala Lampur – and writing about it.

The Authentic Writing workshops place no value on standard academic criticism and make a point of not making didactic suggestions to the writer about what to do next. In every workshop the participants actually write, they don’t talk about it, they don’t take notes about it, nobody theorizes about it. 

Fred and Marta, Co-Directors, believe that good writing is art. It has a life of its own. The results of such an approach are immediate, a distinct and powerful writer’s voice, a release from any form of Writer’s Block and the creation of vivid, artful writing.