Say it!–Standalone Workshops, &, Custom-Made Story–a 10-week intensive course

Announcing writing workshops and classes in resistance to silencing and Suffocation as we write!!

Sep 28, 2025

Silencing and Resistance, Suffocation and Writing!

I know that I’ve been of use in bringing people into, or back to, their powerful voices, their most creative and compelling writing. This time of monsters is a time of censorship, surveillance, punitive measures for language that disagrees with the monsters; measures that keep a constant threat level droning; and measures that go way further, often more disruptive and more violent than suspension from a fat job on tv, although that certainly counts. Measures, also, that take skin color and language spoken, one’s dress and one’s work, as a story that must be punished, incarcerated or expelled. A time as well, of overwhelming grief and rage.

We see what is happening in Gaza, and elsewhere. We know that the chasm between the facts of what we see and the fabrications—the naming, the numbers, the stories, that the monsters assert as fact—hurts the head and the heart. Can choke us up. This chasm is not new but deeper. Writing from out of this chasm, this dissonance, is potent, a form of resistance.

Let’s talk about writing—

Announcing an Ask-Me-Anything session, a free hour of Q & A on writing blocks, story craft, expansion of creativity; questions on upcoming workshops; and sharing by participants.

Many of you know me as a creative writing teacher, a manuscript consultant, a fiction writer and poet—many do not. So, I would like to offer a free hour of zoom discussion of writing and organic story craft; an “ask-me-anything” meeting on writing issues. Participants’ sharing of where you are in relationship to writing and how the current times have impacted it, is welcome.

Please, join us!

Thursday, October 2^nd, at 1:00 pm Eastern Time/NY; 10:00 am Pacific Time/LA; Ireland and UK 6:00 pm; France, Germany…7:00 pm Central European Time. Do check your time zone for correct time of our meeting!

Open to all, register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/67Q2TCY

Now, the birth of freewriting and its pertinence in a time of repression.

There is so much we want to say, to write. We see the clear intent to silence us. I want to talk about suffocation, which some of us already knew on a societal and/or personal and intimate level long before the current reign of monsters. I want to talk about resistance to that suffocation. Stumbling upon a way of resisting being silenced gave me a writing practice that breaks through and goes beyond silencing. Long time back, when I tried to write, I could feel hands around my neck, and covering my mouth. The threat was constant, in the very air I breathed. Freewriting was the only way I could write creatively, for a very long time.

A quick story about this remarkable tool.

There’s this process called freewriting which many if not most people writing have heard of. Who invented it? Google will tell you, Peter Elbow (whom I greatly appreciate), who dropped out of grad school because of a tutor who shut his writing process down (of course, many can’t get that far because of earlier choking on their writing). Before that, there was Surrealist automatic writing/stream of consciousness writing, inspired by Freud’s use of free association to get to the unconscious mind.

Important guys. But guess what? I also invented freewriting, and I have the deep sense that people all over the world whose elbows were not Peter, but who were silenced, often before their first word, have, like me, invented their own freewriting.

I was drowning, suffocating, silenced, dissociative, dislodged into another world than the one I had to walk through, itself a gauntlet of abuse, violence and scorn. Yeah, poor me. But the point is not that experience, but the liberation of my writing through the natural process of racing along with the mind at all its levels of activity. Liberating the self from punctuation, spelling, grammar, censorship of content; from imposed form, formulae, the military march of outlines one must adhere to (often killing the writing…); liberating the voice from others’ opinions, judgments, and boundaries; from circumscribed stories, and from making an acceptable kind of “sense” according to others, which might not have made any real sense to the writer.

How to freewrite

Writing fast. Not thinking. Not stopping. Associating rapidly. Casting away judgment and censorship whether from outside or within. Coming to an axis of independence—the integrity that holds the writer to their truths and their sense of language, of story.

One result of this liberatory practice? A writer who can welcome and use good feedback, but knows the ultimate decision-making is their own. And freewriting so often brings us gems, as it brings us to exactly where we needed to go in what we write.

Once we have a stream of words, there’s time to explore it and find the gems in it. (That’s a whole other discussion.) Freewriting is just a part of the work we do that pushes past suffocation, and I have many approaches to spark streams of writing with both its wide-ranging wildness and its inner intention and sense of organization.

I want to announce a series of single-event workshops —

workshops meant to assist in overcoming overwhelm and silencing, with each 2-hour workshop focusing on a different expansive concept of craft, with in-class writing explorations and one to-go-home with you.

Sometimes more is better. I also want to announce an intensive 10-week course—

a course which focuses on organic and custom-made story craft, whether fiction or memoir/creative nonfiction (or hybrid forms), and includes numerous manuscript critiques from me, as well as responses from the other participants.

When silencing and overwhelm can be crushing, when speaking out is surveilled and punished, this work with me in a community of writers can be a powerful vehicle for resistance, for expansive creativity, and for getting a whole lot of writing done, revised and polished.

To generate writing through a reframed writing craft that speaks to you in these times, and to build a community of writers in a practice that is liberatory; deeply generative of new writing; full of eye-opening takes on craft; and nourishing to our best language and most expansive creativity; I am offering both single-event workshops, and a 10-week intensive course.

Full information on the workshops and 10-week course below, but first:

ASK ME ANYTHING, a free hour of Q & A on writing issues, organic story craft, expansion of creativity, upcoming workshops; sharing by participants.

Thursday, October 2^nd, 1:00 pm Eastern Time/NY; 10:00 am Pacific Time/LA; Ireland and UK 6:00 pm; France, Germany…7:00 pm Central European Time. Check your time zone!

Open to all, register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/67Q2TCY

And while you’re here, please subscribe below to Writing in Upheaval.!

Writing in Upheaval is a reader-supported publication. Subscribers both free and paid receive access to my upcoming Ask Me Anything!

What else is coming up—starting in October—is twofold—

*1. Say it! Dígalo!: The Standalone (write-together) Workshop Series —a new series of generative, single event workshops;

and

**2. A new round of my 10-week intensive course, Custom-Made Story

More information below:

*1. Say it! Dígalo!: The Standalone/Write-together Writing Workshops

Each single-event workshop, open to all separately, is meant to help each writer make leaps in their work by focusing in surprising ways on a single craft concept or approach. Each standalone workshop holds a useful combination of craft discussion with evocative examples; richly generative suggestions for writing explorations; and the opportunity for follow through with in-class writing. I’ll close each workshop with a takeaway suggestion for a writing exploration inspired by the same vital concept—whether to continue a work-in-progress, or to start a completely new work. No formulas or “paint-by-numbers” approaches here—but ways to encourage forth the writing that is distinctly your own.

Below are the titles of the upcoming standalone workshops along with information on fees, dates, and registration. You can also find this information on my website (soon): https://anya-achtenberg.com/workshops/

To register for one or more of the standalone workshops described below: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z8am66dig4ji0emllgkxc/Registration-Form-for-The-Standalone-Write-Together-Workshop.html?rlkey=9q6dwl0xo72vfefq4rpr7skpq&dl=0

1. Say it! Digalo!: Jumping the chasm between what we see and what we say—

Thursday Oct. 23. 1:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time/NY; Ireland and UK 6:00-8:00 pm; France, Germany…7:00-9:00 pm Central European Time

a multi-genre writing workshop to generate new work about the hard-to-say; the overwhelming tangle of the tragic, the threatening, the uncertain, and the hopeful. To liberate the voice, to be of use, to Say it!

2. Working into Story through Simultaneity: a tool both reality-based and magically-fueled! —

Thursday Nov 13, 1:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time/NY; Ireland and UK 6:00-8:00 pm; France, Germany…7:00-9:00 pm Central European Time

Where logic, imagination, reality, and magic—meet. Useful across the genres! Encompasses the work of juxtaposition; of simultaneity not merely as a key element for building tension, but a path into the deep truths of connectedness and causality.

3. The Wandering Narrator’s Tour of Narration: the thorniest element of story— Nothing 1, 2, 3 about it! TBD

—but rather a vast and continually developing array of narrative choices, and kinds of narrators. Goes deep to make an understanding of narration accessible and generative. Useful in any genre holding point[s]-of-view!

4. Writing Place and Placelessness: Reframe the static instruction to write from a sense of place. Date TBD

—expand creativity, context, tension and truth in your writing. Connect issues of place to full development of characterization, and, of course, to narration. Reframe the writing of place and placelessness in a world long in diaspora; at war; witnessing and resisting ethnic cleansing and genocide; experiencing the poisoning of the sacred and accelerating climate catastrophe, and the vast migrations that have always gone with such crises and their aftermath.

To register for one or more Say It! Standalone workshops:

Each workshop is $50 USD. Hardship rate is $35 USD. No one will be turned away.

$50. USD; 38 GBP; 43 Euro. Payments made through Zelle (US); Revolut; Paypal.

Register here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z8am66dig4ji0emllgkxc/Registration-Form-for-The-Standalone-Write-Together-Workshop.html?rlkey=9q6dwl0xo72vfefq4rpr7skpq&dl=0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About the 10-week Custom-Made Story Class

Want to work intensively, consistently, with a great deal of feedback from me, as well as from the other participants? Want to follow your vision and develop it concretely and powerfully, move ahead in a manuscript you love writing and want to move powerfully toward completing? All the while expanding your craft? In a course that does a great deal but is manageable though you are busy. This is for you—————

**2. A new round of Custom-Made Story, a 10-week intensive course in Fiction, Memoir/Creative Nonfiction, & Hybrid Forms with weekly critiques, and Custom-Made approaches to develop &/or complete prose (and hybrid) manuscripts.

1st lecture posted Wednesday Oct. 8th. Zooms every Wednesday from Oct 15- Dec 17, at 1:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time/NY; Ireland and UK 6:00-8:00 pm; France, Germany…7:00-9:00 pm Central European Time. Check your time zone!

*****To register for Custom-Made Story

The Custom-Made Story course caps at 12, so for registration and/or and more information, contact me directly through email, at aachtenberg at gmail dot com

The Custom-Made Story course includes:

10-Zoom classes, 10-written lectures, including craft discussions; manuscript critiques—both written and verbal; stimulating writing explorations, tools for transformative revision; and organic approaches to deepen your understanding of your own writing process/practice.

The class is structured so that I can offer—along with the feedback of other class participants—serious individual attention for each writer’s manuscript and their creative writing process. This is an economical way of getting deep and varied critique for your work; expansive and useful approaches to non-formulaic story craft and story structuring; stimulating ways to open your creativity and associative powers in language and content; and surprising and generative suggestions for writing explorations to open new writing, and/or take great leaps in ongoing projects.

To help generate new approaches and new writing, we’ll also look at a range of global texts (and films for cinematic help with our narratives).

We will work with:

Developing effective dialogue

The play of dialogue and narration

Description, beyond a pile-up of details

Developing the structures of your stories, whether organic or conventional

Subtext: the power underneath your written words

Making the most of the organizing concepts breathing in your text

The power and uses of hybrid elements in story

Expanding your associative and creative powers

To register for Custom-Made Story, contact me directly through email, at aachtenberg at gmail…

$660 USD; 490 GBP; 560 Euro. Payments made through Zelle (US); Revolut; Paypal.

A walk in a fragrant park today. I needed it more than I knew when I set out.

Take good care. Be in touch.

Anya