We are of this time. What is it doing to our voices? To our writing? To our very ability to write, to speak, in the face of silencing and overwhelm…
from my Substack, Writing in Upheaval.
Sep 15, 2025
“The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”
—Antonio Gramsci. Philosopher, politician, consistent critic of Mussolini and fascism, imprisoned 1926-1937, just before his death.
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos//The sleep of reason produces monsters
Francisco Goya, Plate 43 from Los Caprichos, 1799
Writing in Upheaval on Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts directly from Substack, and to support my work–consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at— https://anyaachtenberg.substack.com/
But—It is not only “El sueño de la razón”—“the sleep of reason”—that produces monsters. It’s the sleep of the heart. It’s the notion that a heart can be stone to millions, and somehow love, untainted, the few around the breakfast table. Impossible, I think.
We are of this time. What is it doing to our voices? To the forms of our writing, to its concerns, to our very language—at a time of extremity when words are more densely packed with what we witness, what we experience, what we mourn and fear. What does the word “hunger” spark in us? The word “home”? School? Child?
What does this time do to our very ability to write, to speak, in the face of suffocation and overwhelm? …to our ability to make language and story that hold not only beauty and truth, but some kind of—illumination—support to resistance and empathy—power to spark an actionable understanding, an actionable consciousness?
In the face of another genocide, but this one live-streamed and documented constantly on the ground by people living through it, in spite of foreign journalists being banned from Gaza, in spite of the targeting for murder of Palestinian journalists (along with many others)—there are so many things to talk about, and so many things said better elsewhere, by historians, scholars, Palestinians on the ground and in diaspora. And by all of us.
Me? Among other things, I teach and consult across the genres. As for my central concern—-—story!, whether fiction or nonfiction—I have long been committed to the critique of simplistic causation—in which, A causes B causes C causes D (climax! then E—the undoing of the knot of story, allowing a little weeping called catharsis for the tragedy of the rich and favored men who have fallen. And, essential after catharsis, a good dinner).
I don’t write like that. I don’t teach like that. I don’t live like that. I know that every moment, every act, every being, has acting upon it, multiple causes pushing from multiple directions through multiple layers of time. When we write story recognizing that, it is often said that we are beginning a story in media res—in the middle of things—but that hasn’t always translated into readers who possess a true sense of history and complex causality, or being able to understand either an individual’s story, or stories of global catastrophes.
Any single event—or day—already holds much story, which emerges out of multiple vectors of causality propelling that event into being. So, if you believe that October 7th is The Beginning of The Story; that it justifies every manner of horror enacted upon the Palestinian people; you likely don’t want to read anything at all that I write, and you likely do not want to study and workshop story, whether fiction or memoir/creative nonfiction, or poetry, with me. You would do better with those who use an old formula of story and never deviate from it, even when the story is untrue, implausible, excludes or deforms central events, casts invisibility over those you want to disappear, or is told simply to hide monstrous acts, or to justify them.
I teach creative writing. I’ve developed approaches that have been successful in bringing people to write some of their deepest work, in their most effective and exquisite language, peopled by characters profound and unforgettable. I’ve lately hesitated to come fully onto Substack to invite people to work with me in ongoing classes and single event workshops, and to consult with me individually on their manuscripts and general writing development, because, for me, this is a time inescapably pressurized by the workings of monsters. And that sits in my days and nights, and in my work, which has long been supported by a historical and emotional consciousness that helps me make and understand story and characters, whether actual people or those coming to life in story. I also understand there are endless ways to tell a story, and to approach the difficult things we are pushed to say—subtly, gently, wisely.
All that said, I’m ready to get back to work with you, to be of use to writers other than my clients—writers whether much experienced or tentative and hopeful—to help you develop and pursue an organic craft responsive to each of you in a custom-made way, beyond the truisms accepted as absolutes in denial of the complex realities we experience, and witness. An organic craft responsive to these times, and yet unbound by it.
Whether you are writing a great deal now; or stuck in suffocation and silencing from overwhelm, within the context of authoritarian threat, censorship, and worse; whether you are close to the agonies of this time, or somewhat protected from them, though horrified or grieving; whether the page is blank or the story close to completion; whether you write in one genre or across the genres into hybrid forms—
—you’ll flourish where the map is not formulaic, but an associative map you birth, which leads into the fullness of story and language, in forms that resonate with the map of your heart; your consciousness, experience, voice, intentions and gift.
In a day or so, I’ll post some options to consider if you’re interested in studying and writing with me and others. For now, you can take a look here to get a sense of my many workshops and classes, and individual work with writers: https://anya-achtenberg.com/workshops/
For now, I’ll tell you about one powerful thing that has kept me going, and believing in the work of writing and the art of teaching!
I’ve never doubted this work of assisting others with their writing, helping to open them to their gifts and truths. These days I’m humbled by what it means to young Palestinian writers in Gaza, and some outside of it now, that I—and many other writers around the world—have been able to mentor through the extraordinary organization We Are Not Numbers, established in 2014.
[Hear NPR’s late August interview with WANN, here: https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2025-08-28/we-are-not-numbers-the-voices-of-gazas-youth%5D
Take a look at their website, their new anthology gathering 10 years of the work, and some of the many poems and nonfiction stories by young Palestinian writers, in Gaza and in diaspora, published every week on the WANN website here:
I’ll be sharing more about WANN, with links to the poems and stories…the lives…of my mentees and many others.
Stories here: https://wearenotnumbers.org/category/stories/
Poems here: https://wearenotnumbers.org/category/poems/
For now, having gotten some things off my chest in this post, being back here is good. Please ask me things and tell me things. I’ll continue to write about Writing in Upheaval, with many posts dedicated to a deep dive into organic craft, and to the surprises and depth that a wandering narrator can bring from a landscape of devastation and hope.
Anya Achtenberg, September 2025, Glasgow and Galway
P.S.: Tomorrow a few words about the urgency and power of writing (for writers and for those who may not think of themselves as writers) at a time of the crash of opposites within us.
Anya Achtenberg 