Patricia has spent much of her life as an advocate: for women, for civil rights, for peace, for a healthy environment, for small farms and rural communities, for the arts. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, she moved north years ago with her children. She is a business
owner and trail walker, and has been director of several organizations, including women’s centers, community economic development corporations, district congressional offices, and served as an elected county commissioner for four years. In 1985, when she joined Pat Schneider’s Amherst Writers & Artists writing workshop, she found the courage to write for others to read.
Patricia holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and completed her undergraduate degree at Smith College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1970. She is a founder and past president of Straw Dog Writers Guild, serving writers primarily in western Massachusetts. A grant from the Massachusetts Arts Council, enabled her to help establish a writing program at her local library. Trained to teach English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), Patricia and friends volunteered in the Maya village of Santa Cruz la Laguna on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, where she led retreats beginning in 2006, at Villa Sumaya Retreat Center.
Her poetry, fiction and feature articles have appeared in a variety of journals & anthologies, including The Los Angeles Times, Hampshire Life, and The Boston Sunday Globe. Her poems have appeared in Upstreet, Sanctuary: Magazine of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and Crossing Paths: An Anthology of Poems by Women (Mad River Press), among others. Her work has been featured in the Berkshire Review, which nominated her poem, “Two Hundred Wings” for a Pushcart Prize. She was supported by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to perform her poems as a benefit for the Miniature Theatre of Chester.
Patricia’s novel, a kind of wild west story told from a feminist point of view, is set on a
ranch in West Texas in the 1930’s. After fifteen years in the making, it is due to come
out in fall 2025 from Levellers Press.
Patricia’s book of poems, A Kind of Yellow, won first prize in Writer’s Digest’s International competition for self-published books of poetry and is available HERE or at Amazon.
High Lonesome, her second collection of poems, was published by Hedgerow Books of Levellers Press and is available HERE or at Amazon.
Patricia’s papers and books are in the Sophia Smith Archives at Smith College, and in the Special Collections at UMass Amherst. The Smith Alumnae Magazine, Fall 2020, featured a profile of her, written by Tzivia Gover, and found HERE.
Considering our strengths and our challenges
Beginning in 2020, we faced in our various ways the Corona Virus Pandemic, and it has
continued to be a period of death, illness, isolation and brokenness for many of us on
this planet. And yet, how many times did we shed tears of relief and gratitude to hear
orchestras and choirs of voices and instruments played in living rooms and bathrooms
and balconies in a multitude of countries raised and ringing with the joy of joining
together? And how many times did the courageous work of one person in service to
another stand for the millions of acts of love and compassion the pandemic demanded?
As Robert Emmons wrote, “Faced with demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. Faced with brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. Faced with desperation, gratitude has the power to hope.”
What now? From Patchwork Farm to Little Patch!
In September 2020, I sold and moved from my beloved Patchwork Farm Retreat, which I founded on a little mountain in Westhampton, MA over 40 years ago. Since then, I’ve been in my new home in downtown Northampton in Old School Commons where my children went to school ‘lo those many years ago. It’s a lovely, one-bedroom apartment with 13-foot ceilings that I’ve named “Little Patch.”
Links
- Patricia wrote “How I Came To Lead Writing Workshops and Changed My Life.”
- Patchwork Journal – an on-line journal by Patchwork Writers
- Iona – published in Los Angeles Times on the Isle of Iona, Scotland
- Wales – published in Hampshire Life on sacred sites in Wales
- Texas – published in Los Angeles Times on searching for sacred sites in Texas
- Patricia interviewed in The Writer
- “To This,” a postered poem
- Patricia speaks to Amherst Women’s Club about writing
- Patricia’s photos from her travels to China in 1977 are available at the UMASS Photo Archive online
- People and Their Poems – A Visit with Patricia Lee Lewis
- Forbes Library Readers and Writers Live 2025 featuring Patricia with Melenie Freedom Flynn
- This Writer’s Way – an Interview with Patricia Lee Lewis