The Disobedient Writer

I’m an award-winning author of fiction and poetry, and a long-time teacher of fiction, memoir and poetry. This website is certainly where you might see what I’ve been up to; but, just as much, it is a place to support you in taking steps in your own work, and to know that there is community of others doing the same. With the jolting changes we are experiencing, this is a place to think together, a place to re-examine our writing, our focus, our writing’s responsiveness to the world. 

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Self-study courses

These writing courses will help you expand your creativity and strengthen your writer’s voice. Get writing and keep writing! Contact me if you have any questions. Break the rules and free your story A guide to taking your fiction writing and memoir writing beyond the same old formula and telling unforgettable stories Claiming Our Stories,… Continue reading Self-study courses

Workshop Descriptions

Whether you are a member of a writing group or connected with a literary or educational institution, contact me to arrange a writing workshop in your area or online.

Writers’ services

I offer consultations, manuscript critiques, and craft study for individuals and groups.

Through Anya’s teaching techniques and working with her for a year, she helped transform my 70-page book into a 190-page memoir. By giving me the tools and skills to see the world through my characters’ eyes, I was able to birth them from a life of black and white into a life full of color.

Jonean Walton

If my house were burning down, I would grab artwork, my book, and the notebooks I wrote in Anya’s classes. If you’re looking for an average writing teacher or editor, go elsewhere. Anya resides in the upper stratosphere of creativity and, if you let her, will lift your writing to heights you never dreamed possible. I won the 2006 New Mexico Discovery Award, first prize in non-fiction, for a story I began in Anya’s class. I divide my writing into two phases: pre-Anya and post-Anya. There is no comparison.

Amy Fisher