Does it sometimes seem like your novel is trying to kill you? Have you considered divorcing a story? Me too. Being a writer means coming up against self-doubt, but pushing through that feeling doesn’t have to be scary. What if the blank page felt more like an invitation than a cliff?
In this single-session gathering, we will work through a series of exercises adapted from my book Unstuck that are designed to bring joy, invention, and a sense of possibility to your writing—whether you have yet to write a single word or are on your third draft.
You’ll come away with new words on the page with the promise of more to come. Everyone who wants to will be able to share their work aloud, and we’ll talk as a group about both the tricky parts of writing a novel and the things that help the road feel more open and free. Expect warmth, practical advice, and time to write.
Ramona Ausubel grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her newest novel, The Last Animal, received a Science + Literature Prize from the National Book Foundation and was a National Bestseller and a Barnes & Noble monthly pick. Her newest book will be out in Spring, 20216, Unstuck: 101 Doorways Leading From the Blank Page to the Last Page is a companion for writers at all stages of the process (Tin House Zando). Ausubel is the winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, she has also been a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, California and Colorado Book Awards and long-listed for the Story Prize, Frank O’Connor International Story Award and the International Impac Dublin Literary Award and New York Times Notable Book selections. She holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine where she won the Glenn Schaeffer Award in Fiction.
Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, The New York Times, NPR’s Selected Shorts, One Story, Electric Literature, Ploughshares, The Oxford American, The Best American Fantasy and online in The Paris Review.
Ramona has taught at Tin House, The Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Community of Writers, Writing by Writers, the Low-Residency MFA programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Bennington. She is a professor at Colorado State University.
Ramona is new to The Porch. Welcome!
