Attention queer folk and queer allies!
Your zeitgeist needs you to express your authentic selves, because right now we’re beset with challenges.
Desperate times, right?
Attention queer folk and queer allies!
Your zeitgeist needs you to express your authentic selves, because right now we’re beset with challenges.
Desperate times, right?
When times have polarised people during history…
That’s when queer folk have often stepped in to present – ta dah! – the nuances. Whether as druids, shamans, witches, wise ones or artists, we’ve pointed out the grey shades; the many colors that lie between black and white.
This time though? Frankly, we need the entire rainbow – and a 2.0 version, at that. A new rainbow we will create, tint by shade by tint, during this workshop.
Each time we meet, we will acknowledge our queer and ally-ancestors, those who paved the (often blood-stained) yellow brick road that brought us here. Through safety and confidentiality, we may also acknowledge sadness and trauma we carry – without granting them the upper hand.
And for our new rainbow writings, we’ll draw inspiration from Mother Nature’s mighty Rainbow Eucalyptus trees.
You think these trees only grow in rainforests, by accident? Two words: soft lighting. They actively choose where they will grow the fastest and tallest. Where they will look their best, shedding their bark in gloriously damp and glossy rainbow colours as they climb.
Most importantly, they openly flaunt their sense of humor – their secret key to resilience.
Rainbow Eucalyptus trees always grow slightly twisted: they simply refuse to be straight.
If you’ve read this far, consider this your personal invitation from your quirkily queer co-facilitators, Matthew Curlewis and Meadow Jones PhD. Between us we bring more than a century of fabulous and, at times frightful, lived and writerly experience.
Using AWA (Amherst Writers & Artists) methodology, we provide the safety, the trust and the encouragement to explore and express our queer selves through live in-session writing.
So if you’re interested in writing to queer themes, or writing with fellow queers and allies, or just looking for a safe creative space, then join us for Rainbow Writing.
Let’s create the light we want to see – and to be – together.
Want to Rainbow Write in person? That will be possible on Sunday afternoons in Amsterdam starting in the late summer of 2026.
We’ll meet in person at Singel 82, thanks to the lovely folk from The Book Nook.
Rainbow Writing is a 6-week online series that includes (optional) manuscript revision
July 16 – Aug 20, 2026
Thursdays
Americas and European time zones-friendly
6 x Thursdays
10.00 am – 12.30 pm (Los Angeles – PDT)
1.00 – 3.30 pm (New York – EDT)
6.00 – 8.30 pm (London – BST)
7.00 – 9.30 pm (Amsterdam – CEST)
Price: €240
including (optional) manuscript revision
(AWA Affiliates & Writer Members use coupon code: awa20 for additional discount during Checkout)
If the workshop price presents a financial barrier to you, please drop us an email. We can provide installment plan options and price concessions, on case by case bases.
TBC
Sundays
Amsterdam
6 x Sundays
14.00 – 16.30 in Amsterdam Centrum
Price: €260
(includes coffee, tea, snacks and optional manuscript revision)
If the workshop price presents a financial barrier to you, please drop us an email. We can provide installment plan options and price concessions, on case by case bases.
Express yourself and hone your craft, through the act of writing
Generate new work, revise old work, and explore your rainbow voice – all in the safety and good company of other like minded writers.
Getting started…
Whether you have a story or project already in process, or not, doesn’t matter. Writing suggestions in the sessions will always give you somewhere to start.
Gaining momentum…
By the end of each session you will have created fresh writing. You will also have heard some fellow participants read their fresh work out loud – and sometimes you may have read out loud yourself. (Reading is always optional.) And you will have given and/or received strengths-based feedback.
Feedback that supports and strengthens…
Time is also made available to read and analyse participant manuscripts – no matter their form. This might mean reviewing short stories and essays, at other times screenplay excerpts or works still finding their form. Feedback is given in two rounds. 1) What’s working? What’s already good in this manuscript? And 2) Are there any obstacles / confusions? Any ways to suggest improvement?
Putting it all together.
By producing fresh writing each week, by listening deeply to your fellow writers reading out their own fresh work, by perhaps reading your own work out loud, by close manuscript reading to provide supportive feedback, by listening to feedback provided to your own manuscript… gradually you will have become a Rainbow Writer.
Express yourself and hone your craft, through the act of writing
Generate new work, revise old work, and explore your rainbow voice – all in the safety and good company of other like minded writers.
Getting started…
Whether you have a story or project already in process, or not, doesn’t matter. Writing suggestions in the sessions will always give you somewhere to start.
Gaining momentum…
By the end of each session you will have created fresh writing. You will also have heard some fellow participants read their fresh work out loud – and sometimes you may have read out loud yourself. (Reading is always optional.) And you will have given and/or received strengths-based feedback.
Feedback that supports and strengthens…
Time is also made available to read and analyse participant manuscripts – no matter their form. This might mean reviewing short stories and essays, at other times screenplay excerpts or works still finding their form. Feedback is given in two rounds. 1) What’s working? What’s already good in this manuscript? And 2) Are there any obstacles / confusions? Any ways to suggest improvement?
Putting it all together.
By producing fresh writing each week, by listening deeply to your fellow writers reading out their own fresh work, by perhaps reading your own work out loud, by close manuscript reading to provide supportive feedback, by listening to feedback provided to your own manuscript… gradually you will have become a Rainbow Writer.
A message from participant Jacquie Reid
A message from participant Jacquie Reid
Dear Glorious Fellow Rainbow Writers…
Thank you Matthew for the invitation to join the group.
Thank you all for sharing your work. I know it’s not easy to put it out there, and I feel inspired and humbled by your commitment and bravery. Totally great!
I loved being able to see you all on the zoom call. I was really taken by our differences – age, appearance, what we we wore, and where we were/are, what we said and how. And our similarities – our humanity.
Thank you all for an enriching experience and the opportunity to embrace difference.
And now I have a sweet little song running freely in my head.. ‘ I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too…’ Thanks again. All the very best of rainbow wishes and love.
Jacquie Reid
Dear Glorious Fellow Rainbow Writers…
Thank you Matthew for the invitation to join the group.
Thank you all for sharing your work. I know it’s not easy to put it out there, and I feel inspired and humbled by your commitment and bravery. Totally great!
I loved being able to see you all on the zoom call. I was really taken by our differences – age, appearance, what we we wore, and where we were/are, what we said and how. And our similarities – our humanity.
Thank you all for an enriching experience and the opportunity to embrace difference.
And now I have a sweet little song running freely in my head.. ‘ I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too…’ Thanks again. All the very best of rainbow wishes and love.
Jacquie Reid
A place for queer folk and allies to exclaim, express & explore in community, in safety.
Rainbow Writing is here to provide you with a safe and supportive space to express everything you want to say. We encourage and support you to dig in and do whatever work you need to do – instead of just thinking about it.
“‘Queer’ not as being about who you’re having sex with (that can be a dimension of it) but ‘queer’ as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
— bell hooks
