How to write about The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop? How to explain how surreal and inspiring and, at times, nerve-racking it was to spend a whole week immersed in writing and collaboration with strangers turned friends? I could take you through a play-by-play of our daily schedule (briefly: wake up and do a 3-hour workshop, eat lunch in the campus cafeteria, attend an optional workshop, do daily writing homework, eat dinner, then attend—and, when it’s your turn, participate in—a nightly reading sharing the work we generated in workshop) or I could write about the pleasure of seeing a community of diverse artists make space for joy during a time of national/global despair (I witnessed Marie-Helene Bertino do the Hot to Go dance at karaoke and GUESS WHAT she was very cute!). But in true dear diary fashion I’d like to overanalyze a profound lesson I learned during that week.

Before arriving in Ohio, we got a welcome packet with the name and bio of every workshop participant—fiction writers, nonfiction writers, and poets. I probably should not have skimmed the packet prior to my first day. I saw scary words like “MFA,” “MFA,” “Yale,” “Iowa Writers’ Workshop,” “Tin House Scholar,” “Contest Winner,” “Writing teacher,” “Was a finalist,” “Recently published her first novel,” etc. I saw names of lit mags a plenty that have happily rejected me. I reread my own bio and wondered if I was the only person low brow enough to utter a mention of Substack.

Incredibly, I knew to close my computer and linger no longer. I knew it wouldn’t help me to enter the week with a belief that I am less than these other writers. Instead, I sat down with my cohort for the Welcome Dinner and I talked to them like normal humans, and they talked to me like I was a normal human too. I was nervous to read my first piece of work for the group the next day, but when I did, I actually felt confident. I felt like I belonged.

And honestly, that’s saying something, because these writers were good. Due to the nightly readings, I heard every workshop participant share three minutes of their work. I was genuinely blown away. How can a three minute passage by a stranger—something they wrote this week—make me cry? Make me burst out laughing? The room felt electric, like this is the future of the literary world, these are the people who are going to write buzzy books and get awards and change readers’ lives with their work.

But then I wondered…is that actually true? There were maybe 100 writers across all cohorts, and Kenyon had another session with another 100 writers last month. Then of course there’s every writer going to Tin House, Sewanee, Bread Loaf, etc this year, and then there are the many many incredible writers who aren’t doing any of that shit and are just doing their own thing. Are we really all going to get book deals?

Statistically, the answer is no, and for plenty of reasons beyond our control related to changes in the publishing industry, marketplace whims, luck, etc. I’m more interested in focusing on the reasons that are within our control. A book deal requires a written book, and writing a book is a lot of work. Listening to the workshop participants read their writing, I had no doubt that everyone has the talent to get a book deal. But would we all actually write the book?

As part of the workshop, I got a one-on-one meeting with my writing instructor, Idra Novey. She teaches at Princeton, her fiction has received accolades, she’s also a poet, and she literally translated Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. Like, lol. I sat across from her explaining my weird little bisexual, gender-bending hyperpop-musician threesome book and she was into it!! As I summarized the story, in my head I was like holy shit, I can actually talk about my novel without sounding like a bumbling idiot (have you tried talking about your novel? It is weirdly hard!). I felt like I knew this project deep in my soul, because I do! She asked me about querying plans and I told her I have a full draft written but am currently revising, with a (maybe wildly ambitious) plan to be done around February (she did not seem to think this was so wildly ambitious).

She said, “Seems like you’ve got everything in place then.”

“Right, I think I do,” I said. “I just have to do it.”

And she seemed a little confused, then asked, “Are you just worried about querying? Like, worried to see what agents will say?”

She didn’t understand what I meant by “I just need to do it.” Like, I could tell she was like….so…what’s stopping you? It was such a weirdly confronting moment for me. Because honestly, I’m actually kind of excited to query (again, delusional?! I don’t care!). I read the opening paragraph of my novel to my workshop and they loved it. I know I have a strong voice, I know my story is juicy and funny and compelling. I know there will be a million novel-related rejections in my future but tbh I really believe in my work and I think other people will like it too.

So Idra’s question made me pause and consider: when I say, “I just have to do it,” what is the invisible block holding me back?

This is a question worth examining for all of us. We all can write a book. You just have to sit at your computer and type, lol. But if we want to and yet we are not doing it: why?

Personally, my answer makes no sense. The invisible block holding me back is some mixture of fears that it’s “too hard” (as if I haven’t already written a whole ass book and revised a quarter of it, thus proving I can do it), it will “take too long” (as if there’s a universal timeline), and I will “eventually lose interest” (as if I haven’t been excited by this idea since beginning my work on it in December 2022). So I sort of just looked at Idra with a dumbfounded expression and mumbled something incoherent. I’m so glad she asked that seemingly innocuous clarifying question, because it made me realize that I don’t have to keep telling myself, “I just have to do it,” as if finishing my revisions is some major uphill battle with all these challenges I have to conquer. I’m making it harder on myself when I act like finishing is so hard, this thing I ~just have to do.~ I like writing! I like my project! If I stay devoted to my practice, I will finish. It’s that simple.

At the Writers Workshop, I spoke to writers at all different stages of the process. Some had books forthcoming, some were agented, some agentless, some had books die on sub, some were revising, some juggling multiple in-progress manuscripts, some working on nothing at all. Everyone was so kind and so talented. I thought back to those intimidating bios in my welcome packet, all those scary words that threatened my confidence. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much we want to be a writer, and it doesn’t matter what lit mags we were published in or what school we went to. We have to just write the book. It’s the only way.

+ changes!

You may or may not have noticed that I didn’t publish for two weeks, but on my end, I gotta be honest—it felt pretty good! I missed writing, but it felt nice to have personal experiences without translating them into content.

I’ve decided to honor this wave of feeling and shift to just publishing whenever I want to publish. It’s gonna be a lil surprise in your inbox! Honestly, I very well may return to weekly posting in the future but for now this feels right. I lowkey have a novel to revise.

Second change: I have put most of my past posts behind a paywall! This is just something my intuition is telling me to do tbh. I think (i hope) the magic of this space is that it’s a place for me to be really honest and vulnerable and work my emotions out in real time. Now, over a year into dear diary, some of my previous posts don’t resonate with me as strongly anymore. I don’t think that means they should be erased from my archive—they are part of my story, and I’m proud of them—I just maybe feel like I want them to be a little less publicly available on the World Wide Web. Putting these posts behind a paywall feels like an added layer of protection, knowing that the only people who have access to them will be invested in me and my writing.

My plan is to keep my four most recent posts free, then put them behind a paywall. So if you’re a free subscriber, you will always have access to my four most recent posts. I’ll also keep a few bangers from the archive free. Again, this might change! I have no idea what I’m doing! But thank you for being with me through the waves. If you tend to catch up on my posts in batches and don’t have the means to become a paid subscriber, DM me and I’ll comp ya.

read my short fiction