Welcome! I’m Deborah Bayer, writer and workshop facilitator.
I am (mostly) retired from the practice of Infectious Disease and Palliative Care. I write poems and personal essays, and I’m working on a memoir about the need for emotional support in the workplace.
I facilitate writing groups via Zoom. These groups blend the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) methodology with the Narrative Medicine workshop format.
Visit my Shop to see the upcoming workshops.
A Rope Made of Bandages
Poems by Deborah Bayer
AWA Workshops
The supportive approach of the AWA method lends itself to healing from all kinds of trauma, including the trauma of medical training.
Stay Connected
My Substack newsletter, Healers Write, Writers Heal is published biweekly.
Blog Archive
When Caregiving Crosses Creativity
This week I shared a piece with my writing group that didn’t feel successful. I wrote a response to a prompt that was full of false starts and repeated attempts to begin. I finally stumbled on a topic but then ran out of time. The feedback I got was still valuable....
Narrative Threads
In September 2021, I met with my memoir group. We had been meeting together for a year to get our first drafts written. The prompt was a familiar William Stafford poem, “The Way It Is.” My writing that day gave me insight into what my memoir was about....
How to Be an Authentic Clown
About five years ago, I attended a Professional Training for AWA facilitators. We were an energetic group, and we all had a vital thing in common. We wanted to help people write and heal through their writing. A friend, Teegan Mannion, gave a...