The Disobedient Writer

Expanding Characterization: Discovering the Unlived Life, is an intensive workshop on December 16, 12:30-4:30 pm, Hudson Valley Writers' Center On December 16, at the beautiful Hudson Valley Writers' Center, I'll be teaching an intensive workshop on characterization, with a richly productive approach, that makes our work that day follow an unusual path, one that embraces and explores the mysteries of… Continue reading Characterization workshop on December 16

Writing courses

New course: Break the Rules and Free Your Story

April 17, 2017May 1, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f73sF_-UaHc This is the first course that I am releasing on Udemy.com, an international platform for online courses of all kind. For a full description and registration please visit https://www.udemy.com/the-disobedient-writer-break-the-rules-and-free-your-story Break the rules and free your story “Write what you know”, “Find your voice,” “Outline” - rules and conventions are pervasive in fiction writing, and whether we… Continue reading New course: Break the Rules and Free Your Story

General Writing

On being a disobedient writer

March 14, 2017April 29, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

You have the final say in shaping your work; the first say in its birth; the real responsibility of bringing it forth in a way that is true to your project and your truth. You might work tirelessly to learn, to hear, to read, to be open to the truths of other writers; you might… Continue reading On being a disobedient writer

News; things to look for, The power of the arts, Travel

Why the heck do I organize trips to Cuba? I am not a travel agent…I’m a novelist, poet, teacher!!!

February 20, 2016 Anya Achtenberg

February 20, 2016 Why have I--- a quite busy professional writer; teacher of creative writing; writer’s consultant; film maniac and occasional Cuban film festival curator; arts adorer; salsa dancer and music devourer; and, of course, lover of books, and lover of justice --- continued to organize trips to Cuba? Like my Multicultural Cuba… Continue reading Why the heck do I organize trips to Cuba? I am not a travel agent…I’m a novelist, poet, teacher!!!

Uncategorized

What happens inside a writer, in a world at war? Who to listen to, in a world at war?

August 10, 2014 Anya Achtenberg

The bombing continues, the cities are rubble, are emptied… whose plan… the children are at the center of the explosion, they burst apart, as if the heart of a child were the precise target. Fiercely some hold on to their own holocaust, but as I write a novel, “fiction” you’d say, the characters meet… Continue reading What happens inside a writer, in a world at war? Who to listen to, in a world at war?

Beyond writer's block, Creative Process, General Writing, Voice

Trusting Our Own Vision, or: The Late Bloomers’ Club

January 18, 2013November 22, 2017 Anya Achtenberg

For A.M.-C. “The bud stands for all things, even those things that don't flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness” From Galway Kinnell, “St. Francis and the Sow” I was a small girl in Brooklyn, between broken English and broken hearts, whispered Yiddish,… Continue reading Trusting Our Own Vision, or: The Late Bloomers’ Club

Uncategorized

3 Online Creative Writing Classes, start dates, January 10 and January 17…

January 12, 2013 Anya Achtenberg

Dear Friends, If you are looking for a place to push your writing to the next step, do it online with me, and with a group of varied and dedicated writers. Rededicate yourself to bringing your writing forward, going to the next level in your craft, getting a fuller sense of your long term… Continue reading 3 Online Creative Writing Classes, start dates, January 10 and January 17…

Beyond writer's block, Creative Process, General Writing

Writing and the New Year: A request for writers.

December 24, 2012 Anya Achtenberg

Dear Writers and Friends, Almost 2013! I have a request, for you and for myself, for the new year. We have plenty of other work for our imagination to do, and so—let’s free it from that need to imagine we are writers, and write with an imagination freed to do its enormous labor… Continue reading Writing and the New Year: A request for writers.

Contemporary Events, Story

The terrible story is always bigger than the terrible event.

December 20, 2012 Anya Achtenberg

On December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, around 9:30 in the morning, a gunman entered an elementary school and on a rampage, after killing his mother with one of her guns, killed extraordinarily courageous staff members-- teachers, a psychologist, and the principal (all women), and 20 small children, six and seven years of age. Grief… Continue reading The terrible story is always bigger than the terrible event.