The Autumn Society writing experience is through Field Days, a combination of hiking, brunch, and an AWA writing session. Field Days run monthly, May through September. Field Days serve practicing writers looking for to build better observation skills by practicing writing Field Notes during our hike. After brunch, the AWA writing session is an immediate opportunity to put your observations into your writing.
Field Day Schedule
- Morning Hike – A local trail walk using Grinnell field notes to develop attention to landscape
- Brunch – A shared meal to build community and connection
- Writing Session – An in-person writing experience using the Amherst Writers & Artists method
- Frequency: Monthly
- Day: Sundays
- Location: In-person, hosted in Massachusetts
- Facilitator: Christopher J. Sparks
Grinnell Field Notes
Grinnell field notes originated in natural science observation—a structured approach to recording what you actually see, not what you think you see. The method trains attention through:
- Detailed sensory observation
- Specific, concrete language
- Disciplined focus on present-moment experience
- Recording without interpretation
For writers, this practice sharpens descriptive precision and grounds storytelling in lived detail. Walking with field notes transforms casual hiking into active research, building a vocabulary of place.
Amherst Writers & Artists
AWA is a generative writing practice that creates safe space for authentic voices to emerge. Core principles include:
- All writing is treated with respect
- Feedback focuses on what’s working in the piece
- No critique or advice—only witness and appreciation
- The facilitator writes alongside participants
- Confidentiality protects what’s shared in the room
AWA workshops use prompts to bypass the inner critic and access deeper material. The method honors all voices equally, making it particularly powerful for writers whose perspectives have been historically marginalized.
Why These Methods Work Together
Grinnell field notes train your eye. AWA training frees your voice.
Field Notes teaches you to see. The exact quality of light, the particular sounds at dawn. This observational discipline gives you concrete material to work from.
AWA creates the safe container where that material can become story, poem, essay—where observation transforms into meaning. The generative prompts pull from what you’ve just witnessed on the trail. Your field notes become source material. Your walking becomes research.
Together, these methods build writers who see clearly and write truthfully. Who root their stories in landscape and lived experience. Who develop both craft precision and creative freedom.
This is how Autumn Society approaches writing: walk first, observe closely, then write from what you’ve actually seen.