Amsterdam Writers

With thanks to - so great to have my fiction short story The Handwritten Film featured in their 10th Edition Anthology, with its beautiful cover art: Safe Space Ship by Jennifer Frederick. Thank you!

It's time to WriteOn! ✒️

AWA’s (Amherst Writers & Artists) WriteOn! initiative is designed to help YOU carve out the time you need to write, no matter where in the world you are.

🌎 We're offering a place and space for writers to join us for hour-long writing sessions, every weekday during November. From 07:30 till 08:30, in four different time zones around the world, you can join us, for free, to write in community.

I WILL BE HOSTING THE AMSTERDAM TIME ZONE “ROOM”, MON-FRI OF THE 1ST AND 3RD WEEKS OF NOVEMBER. PLEASE JOIN ME!

📚 If you've ever wanted to fuel your creative writing, or to create a consistent schedule for getting words on the page, then join on Zoom from anywhere this November, to Write On!

🔗 Visit the link in my bio to register and learn more, or copy from here!
https://amherstwriters.org/writeon-with-awa-in-november

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Goedemiddag beste boekenliefhebbers en schrijvers in Nederland. On Friday Oct. 17 I’m hosting an afternoon with Australian author Zanni Louise Arnot at in Amsterdam! 📚 Come join us!

 will be talking about her new YA novel, A Guide to Falling Off the Map, a heartfelt story about friendship, grief, road trips, and falling in love when everything feels like it’s falling apart. Seventeen-year-old Vinnie has big plans and vision boards for a future in New York. But when things start to unravel, she heads off on a spontaneous road trip with her childhood best friend, Roo… and nothing goes as expected.

Stick around afterwards for the book signing and to say G’day. The highly-accomplished author of over 40 middle-grade, YA and children’s picture books, Zanni brings passion and heart to all her endeavours. Small wonder that she’s so loved within both writer and reader communities. Hope to see you there!

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According to Amherst Writers & Artists founder Pat Schneider: "A writer is someone who writes."

I've been leading AWA methodology workshops for around twenty years now, and yet every single workshop is always new, fresh and exciting to me, because it's always about who shows up on the day, and what we create in the moment.

If you'd like to quit "thinking about writing" in favour of actually "creating some writing", then please join us. Experience for yourself a bit of Pat Schneider's magic that still occurs in every AWA methodology-led, safe and supportive, generative workshop.

Great for those in American / Canadian or European time zones.

All info and registrations at: https://amsterdamwriters.com/writers_stretch_and_tone/

Write first, ask questions later.

A range of greys and blacks, various whites, and silver like you may never have pictured it before. These are the colours I bring you today in my deep-dive conversation with world-renowned metalsmith Junko Mori.

My invitation, “Please discuss with me one of your pieces, through the perspective of colour,” took us in multiple directions - that always started from ‘shape’ and ‘material practice’. First through many aspects of steel forging, refining and treating - leading Junko to exclaim at one point (to my delight): “What a weird, nerdy chat about metalwork process, this is!” Then we tackled silver, and how Junko loves presenting silver in her version of what it looks like in the ground – pearly-white, or off-white, still a distance from “highly polished.” Lastly, we talked about what happens when Junko dives into the “hobby-like playfulness” of both drawing, and painting with watercolours.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading, or listening to our conversation here:
https://matthewcurlewis.substack.com/p/a-splash-of-colour-at-tefaf-4-junko

Thank you to both and , and to all the brilliant support staff at , where Junko’s work was being represented at Stand 254.

Images:

P.S. This article includes one perhaps ‘unexpected’ element - a true-life love story centred around a Junko Mori silver sculpture!

Lush, forest-deep, paradise-like greens. And rose petal, ‘laladi’, soft pinks. Those are the colours I offer you today in emeralds and spinels, thanks to the wonderful people at at Maastricht. My invitation, “Please discuss with me one of your pieces, through the perspective of colour,” led us into through interlinked histories between Europe and India, and through billions of years of tectonic formations glittering just underneath our Earth’s crust.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading, or listening to our conversation here:
https://matthewcurlewis.substack.com/p/a-splash-of-colour-at-tefaf-3-santi

Thank you to Krishna and Sharwan Choudhary and their staff at SANTI. You can view their pieces at TEFAF Stand 143 thru till the end of today, Thursday 20th March.

 &a &aexhibitions &arts #

What a privilege it was to interview such a renowned (and totally delightful) ceramic artist as Kate Malone MBE at Maastricht. My invitation, “Please discuss with me one of your pieces, through the perspective of colour,” led us into territories relevant to so many types of creative people. Not just ceramists, but also writers, sculptors, painters, and further.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading, or listening to our deep dive conversation at my link in bio, or by copy pasting:
https://matthewcurlewis.substack.com/p/a-splash-of-colour-at-tefaf-2-kate

Thank you to and to all the brilliant support staff at where Kate’s work is on show at TEFAF Stand 254 thru till the end of this Thursday 20th March.

New from Bright Side Writings!

Deep (and shallow!) dives into TEFAF 2025 exhibition pieces through the perspective of colour.

https://matthewcurlewis.substack.com/p/a-splash-of-colour-at-tefaf-2025

Join me as I continue my A Splash Of Colour series, but this time by exploring all kinds of pieces; from jewellery to ceramics to silver to ancient artifacts to paintings, all through the perspective of colour.

In this edition: contemporary Japanese ceramics from , and jewels from .aardewerk and .

Next edition coming up: fascinating interviews with Junko Mori and Kate Malone from Adrian Sassoon!

If the opportunity to visit ever presents itself, I suggest you grab on with both hands and don’t let go. Autumn in Japan is simply spectacular.

Wherever in the world you may be in the coming weeks, I wish you a peaceful time – sprinkled with liberal amounts of beauty and love.

Still glowing, one day after leading The Water Cooler - an informal, online get-together for AWA-certified workshop leaders. I first came in contact with in the ‘90s in New York, thanks to an invitation from my dear friend . I’ve been involved at various levels ever since, but these days it’s my AWA folks who help me breathe, quite literally – I receive so much oxygen, support and love from everyone there. 

The invitation I wrote to yesterday’s session read, “Vaporize your pre-election jitters at the Water Cooler, this Sunday.” During 90 minutes, 14 of us discussed so many things, like AWA’s incredible work of giving writing workshops for caregivers. Like helping survivors of sexual assaults, trauma and abuse give voice to their stories in safe, careful, structured workshops that stay miles away from being therapy, but still manage to be hugely therapeutic for the participants. Like the quiet power of something like a writing workshop for bereaved mothers that one of my colleagues joined 22 years ago. Catch that? 22 years. And she is still writing with that group today.

But that’s the power of AWA – while there are all kinds of workshops designed for more niche audiences like LGBTQ+, or Black women, or Jewish people writing family histories, there’s also plenty of room for someone like myself, a normal (ahem, many may question that!), gay, white guy who leads Writers’ Stretch & Tone – a workshop that is just like daily dance class, but for writers.

As we concluded the Water Cooler, AWA Chair said, full of smiles, “Well Matthew I’m afraid you didn’t manage to vaporize my pre-election jitters, but you certainly took my mind off the subject for a whole hour and a half!” If that was the least I could do, as we all hold on for dear life, wondering which way the world will turn in the coming days, then I’m a happy guy.
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Here I share some additional tree knowledge... about trees that germinated nearly 3,000 years BCE, and trees over 90 metres high, and one 9,000 year-old clonal tree that covers an area the size of 1,700 tennis courts... all while taking you on a journey to South West Western Australia's old-growth forests.

https://bit.ly/wisdomtrees2

So what are you waiting for? Step on over to Bright Side Writings! Optimism-led, fortnightly-ish stories to brighten these dark times of chaos and collapse - because I believe that joy is where hope resides.

Exploring The Wisdom & Beauty Of Trees - Part Two Some more tree knowledge + a trip to the forests of South West Western Australia

Dear friend David Bonney is in a present Writers' Stretch & Tone workshop with Amsterdam Writers, and I'm so thrilled for him that these 50 gorgeous words of his have just been published!

DAVID NORMAN BONNEY: Sun Burned Belly pressed against the warm sand. Through half closed eyes, the golden hairs on my forearm bend like grass in the breeze. The foamy ocean edge reaches up, falls back, tugging the sun burned memo…