BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

FRED POOLE
Founder and Co-Director of the Authentic Writing Workshops

For over thirty years Fred Poole was a writer and journalist traveling throughout the world into dangerous territories – from Haiti to Cuba, from Beirut to Angola, from Bangkok to Kuala Lampur – and writing about it. During these years he published over a dozen books including a novel Where Dragons Dwell (Harper) and the exposé Revolution in the Philippines: the U.S. in a Hall of Cracked Mirrors (McGraw-Hill).

In the mid-eighties, responding to a persistent sense of dissatisfaction, Poole allowed his life to take a more spontaneous and introspective turn. His explorations led him into years as an art student in New York City followed by progressive theological studies and a master’s degree at Boston College.

Drawing from his most meaningful experiences as a writer, teacher, artist and seeker, Fred Poole created the Authentic Writing Workshops in 1993. Since that time he has led workshops every week both in Woodstock and New York City, offered programs in colleges and retreat centers throughout the Northeast, performed his work on stage with Marta and regularly hosts public readings by Authentic Writing participants.

MARTA SZABO
Co-Director of the Authentic Writing Workshops

Marta Szabo has been a writer and editor all her life. She was an editor in mass-market paperbacks then in magazines, interspersing these early careers with a serious pursuit of yoga and meditation. She lived in an ashram – a yogic monastery -- for over ten years, spending a year and a half in India.

Since leaving the ashram in 2000, Marta has pursued her own art, picking up an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and completing two book-length memoirs as well as hundreds of short pieces. She is much sought after as a skilled and sensitive editor.

In addition to regular Authentic Writing workshops, Marta has brought the program to young people, teaching in colleges and schools throughout the Hudson Valley. She has offered writing groups to cancer survivors, young leaders, at-risk teens, and young men in correctional facilities. She created "Ink in the Air," a creative writing radio show for WJFF, a public radio station in the Catskills, and FRICTION, a biannual journal of writing from the Authentic Writing workshops.

BLOGS:

The Aqua Mustang
Fred’s current memoir in progress

Fred Poole on Writing
Fred’s thoughts and stories about the dangerous, counter-cultural art of writing

Memoir in Progress
Marta’s current memoir in progress

Authentic Writing Stories
Recent writing from the workshops

The Guru Looked Good
A story of yoga and obsession

Experiments in Memoir
Several years of Marta’s memoir pieces

Mostly Memoir
Marta’s thoughts on memoir

 

PRESS

Read articles about Authentic Wrting, Fred Poole and Martz Szabo.

WEBSITE DESIGN:

wordimagemedia.com
Dina Pearlman, web designer

WEBSITE PHOTOGRAPHY:

Ben Caswell
Group Shots by Trish Lease Photo

 

Tamar, the dog. Attends all Woodstock workshops.
Along with Mousie thecat who refused to be photographed.