The Autumn Society is a writing group for Black artists who want to connect more deeply, enrich their creativity and lives, and manifest change by shifting how they see the world using our take on Grinnell Field Notes to develop attention and detail retention.
We offer monthly writing experiences during the warm seasons, through our Field Day series of hikes, brunch and AWA-style writing groups. Our Autumn Retreat, which combines Field Day experiences with an AWA-style writing retreat, runs every October.
Autumn Society is a committee of Straw Dog Writers Guild, and grew out of Valley Society, which was founded in 2019.
Hiking, brunch, AWA writing.
October immersive writing experience.
Learn to see and retain more details.
Centered on Black, and adjacent, adventures.
Help support Black artists.
Poems in jars. Amazing.
The inaugural Valley Society writing retreat took place October 10-12, 2025, at the Film Shack on Tully Lake in Orange, Massachusetts. We gathered in a space built by Black filmmakers for Black artists, and the posters watching over us all weekend told their own story. Robert Patton-Spruill and Patti Moreno’s Welcome to the Terrordome and Turntables hung on the walls—documentaries about...
David Andrews is an artist with vision. I first met David at his well attended opening reception at 50 Arrow Gallery in Easthampton, MA last year. This was followed by a show, some months later, with an opening in Springfield MA at Art for the Soul Gallery in Tower Square. Like a sculptor, Andrews crafts his message by removing layers, piercing natural, found materials and written compositions to...
Seta Rampersad, a student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, died in the presence of at least three other people on September 13, 1978.
Black Artists on Change