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

Writers’ services

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

Your voice as a writer and teacher makes the strands of space that connects more visible. You do that when you teach I think, evoke the deep hidden layers of meaning, the interstices of silence where potent stories reside and you tease them from others by the way you speak, the way you hint at the interweavings within a life, a character’s perceptions, the nuances of truth.

Loretta McGrath

The best thing I did was study writing with Anya Achtenberg for several years. She was able to bring me back to writing, gently. She is a nurturing teacher and compassionate as well as keen reader. She is truly gifted in both writing and teaching-a rare combination, one that should be embraced as well as celebrated. My writing shined with Anya, her insights there to illuminate it.

Jennifer Ruden