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Cathy Bonczek, 5 year tlter
"I call her a muse, she has a gift... there is an artistry to how she communicates with each and every one of us in that room. It is so supporting and it's so on target and she doesn't even know how brilliant she is. She reacts with this open heart and this amazing capacity to get the layers underneath what someone has put on the page, that it's really enchanting. And it's very affirming. She's got a touch of magic that she brings to every class." |
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Beth Gosk, 7 year tlter
"When I first came, I had three little kids. My youngest was just going to nursery school and tlt felt like my only breathe of air during the week... my own time. And I was starting to feel like there was this shift. Suddenly my life wasn't really about me at all anymore it was just about my kids and I was receding behind the stage. By coming here and writing about my own life and my own childhood and growing up stories and about my children, I feel like I've been able to reposition that... and think differently about the way that my own experience is in relation to being a mom. It's one piece of me but it's not the only piece." |
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.Feri Ghofrany, 4 year tlter
"I walked in, I looked at Drew and that was it. She was warm, she was inviting, made me instantly very comfortable. I sat in that chair and I said to myself, I'm not going to write- I'll just watch and listen to other people. At the end of the session, I found myself. I was reading a small piece." |
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Lindsay Barrett, 3 year tlter
"When we come here, Drew starts by reading us poetry or different pieces of writing that she has collected for the week... and you sit down, and you listen to her read and she says 'just put your pen on the paper and see what appears' and something always comes. It just happens every time, and its always things that you didn't expect." |
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Arline Epstein, 14 year tlter
"Better than psychotherapy in a way, because it's kind of not all about you, its about you as a lens into other people and into yourself." |
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Lee Jennings, 1 year tlter
“Where we live, most people present with such a strong social mask...Everything is perfect and fine and we’re happy, ya know. But in here, it’s real. And in that sense it’s the greatest community. People are really authentic, and it’s beautiful.” |
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Cheryl Podob, 10 year tlter
"She somehow figures out how to tap inside you and bring out the stuff that you didn't know was there. She's very inspiring that way...it's her approach to it, that gives you that confidence- to say what you need to say and write what you need to write and be who you need to be." |
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Sally Kidd, 10 year tlter
"You do taste your life twice. You get to chose an incident, something that happened to you, something you saw, and you get to frame it and look at it as you write about it... Probably the most valuable part of working with Drew is learning to appreciate your life and these various pieces that make up the whole thing." |
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Joanne DePaola, 7 year tlter
"I'm a therapist. I found it so therapeutic to come and to write... Every time I leave, I feel really good - not about the way I'd written, but that I had written something that was meaningful to me. And so life goes on and terrible things happen and wonderful things happen and I'm able to come and write about it here, in a way that helps me understand my own path, how I need to continue in life. It's an amazing experience." |
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Lauren Bernstein, 2 year tlter
"It's helped me find a part of myself that wasn't free before. I think I was holding something back. Writing and sharing has opened up a part of me that I love. It just feels so good that I need to do it." |
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Gabi Coatsworth, 4 year tlter
"Drew is wonderful. It's very hard to explain what she does. But her encouragement and her ability to read the subtext in what you write- you don't even realize what it is you've said about yourself, but she get's it immediately. She's got an uncanny ability to remember what you just wrote and to pick out the best parts of it, which encourages you to keep writing the best sort of things." |
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Mary Gerster, 9 year tlter
"...to come every week, to look forward to it...I come out with things that I write that always surprise me. I often think I'm going to write about something that happened during the week, but after she reads...and you put your pen down, I find totally different things come forward." |