Don't Write Alone Weekend

This event is in the past. To register for Don't Write Alone 2019, click here.

For the next installment of DON’T WRITE ALONE, Catapult is taking over NYU’s Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House (the coziest brownstone in the West Village) for a summer weekend writing party.  

The three-day event will kick off on Friday evening with a welcome reception, followed by a reading and intimate conversation with international bestseller Paul Auster, who will discuss the ups and downs of committing to life as a novelist.

On Saturday, writers are invited to settle in for a day of engaging, inspiring craft talks with authors Mira Jacob, Porochista Khakpour, Victor LaValle, and more. Writers will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with agents from leading agencies, and Catapult instructors will be stopping in throughout the day. 

On Sunday morning, we’ll wrap the weekend up with intensive workshops in small groups, so that writers can leave the retreat not only with new work and inspiration, but also with valuable feedback to help them make what's on the page even stronger.

Due to space constraints, this event is limited to 75 writers.

WEEKEND SCHEDULE

Friday

7pm - Paul Auster in conversation with Scott Cheshire

8-10pm - Welcome reception 

Saturday

*all talks are suitable for fiction and nonfiction writers

10:30-11:45am - Victor LaValle on creating present action

12-1:15pm - Mira Jacob on dialogue and voice 

1:30-3pm - Lunch panel on publishing with Yuka Igarashi, Kevin Nguyen, Cal Morgan, and Monika Woods, moderated by Julie Buntin

3:15-4:30pm - Porochista Khakpour talk

5pm - A reading and conversation with first-time novelists Angelica Baker and Patty Yumi Cottrell

Writing space open from 10am - 7pm

Informal after party at nearby bar

Sunday

10:30am-1:30pm - Optional add-on workshops with Julie Buntin and Lincoln Michel

Writing space open from 10am - 3pm

ADMISSION COSTS

Regular $150 admission covers full access to the NYU Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House starting Friday evening at 6 p.m., as well as readings and talks by Paul Auster, Mira Jacob, Porochista Khakpour, Victor LaValle, and other writers and publishing visionaries. Drinks on Friday, full lunch on Saturday, and of course, unlimited coffee throughout the event are also included.

Writers have the option of adding on a Sunday morning workshop. We will offer one workshop in fiction, and one in nonfiction; groups will be capped at six students, and spaces in workshops are limited. Cost to enroll in a workshop is an additional $150. Please note that in order to participate in the Sunday morning workshops, you must be prepared to submit up to 15 pages of your writing by June 10, so that your writing may be shared with your classmates in advance of the workshop. To sign up for a workshop, please email Colin Drohan (colin.drohan@catapult.co). 

A limited number of one-on-one cold pitch sessions with editors (from houses big and small) and agents (from ICM, Janklow & Nesbit, William Morris Endeavor,  and Curtis Brown) will also be scheduled throughout the day on Saturday; these sessions are $50. 

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS & GUESTS 

PAUL AUSTER is the bestselling author of Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012 he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He has also been a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (The Music of Chance), and the Edgar Award (City of Glass). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

ANGELICA BAKER is the author of Our Little Racket. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.F.A. from Columbia University. She now lives in Brooklyn.

JULIE BUNTIN is from northern Michigan. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, O, The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Electric Literature, and One Teen Story, among other publications. She teaches fiction writing at Marymount Manhattan College, and is the director of writing programs at Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

SCOTT CHESHIRE is the author of the novel High as the Horses' Bridles, a Best Book of 2014 pick at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Salon, and Electric Literature. His work has been published in AGNI, Catapult, Electric Literature, Guernica, Harper’s, One Story, and the Picador Book of Men. He is a managing editor at The Scofield and lives in New York City.

PATTY YUMI COTTRELL is the author of  Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. Her work has appeared in BOMB, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review, among other places. She lives in Los Angeles.

EMILY CUNNINGHAM is an Editor at Penguin Press whose authors include Susan Quinn, Elizabeth L. Silver, Paul Greenberg, Kevin Davis, and Priya Satia. She is on the hunt for nonfiction across a variety of genres, including biography, history, reportage, science, sports, and food writing, as well as literary fiction. She began her publishing career at Grove/Atlantic and has also worked at Harper. Emily is a native of the Boston area and lives in Brooklyn.

YUKA IGARASHI is the web editor in chief of Catapult and the editor in chief of Soft Skull Press.

MIRA JACOB is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, which was shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, honored by the Asian Pacific American Library Association, and named one of the best books of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, the Boston Globe, Goodreads, Bustle, and The Millions. Her recent work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Vogue, Guernica, and The Scofield. She is currently drawing her graphic memoir, GOOD TALK: Conversations I’m Still Confused About (forthcoming from Dial Press).

POROCHISTA KHAKPOUR is the author of the forthcoming memoir Sick (Harper Perennial, May 2018), and the novels The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014)—a 2014 "Best Book of the Year" according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and more — and Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove, 2007)—the 2007 California Book Award winner in “First Fiction,” a Chicago Tribune’s “Fall’s Best,” and a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.” Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, Bookforum, Slate, Salon, Spin,CNN,The Daily Beast, Elle, and many other publications around the world. She’s had fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the University of Leipzig (Picador Guest Professorship), Yaddo, Ucross, and Northwestern University’s Academy for Alternative Journalism, among others. She is currently writer-in-residence at Bard College, adjunct faculty at Columbia University, and visiting faculty at VCFA's MFA program. Born in Tehran and raised in the Los Angeles area, she lives in New York City’s Harlem.

DANYA KUKAFKA has been at Riverhead for two and a half years. She works as assistant editor for the publisher, Geoff Kloske, and VP/editor-in-chief, Sarah McGrath, with whom she has edited authors like Paula Hawkins, Lauren Groff, Meg Wolitzer, Brit Bennett, Maile Meloy, Helen Oyeyemi, Emma Straub, and many more. She is now acquiring her own books for the Riverhead list; she is looking for big, expansive fiction with rich inner worlds, and narrative-driven nonfiction. She is also the author of the novel Girl in Snow, coming this summer from Simon & Schuster.

VICTOR LAVALLE is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, three novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, and The Devil in Silver, and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Whiting Writers' Award, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Shirley Jackson Award, an American Book Award, and the key to Southeast Queens. He was raised in Queens, New York. He now lives in Washington Heights with his wife and kids. He teaches at Columbia University.

LINCOLN MICHEL is a founding editor of Gigantic and the former editor-in-chief of electricliterature.com. His fiction has appeared in Granta, Oxford American, Tin House, NOON, Pushcart Prize anthology, and elsewhere. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, Bookforum, Buzzfeed, Vice, The Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. He is the co-editor of Gigantic Worlds, an anthology of science flash fiction, and the author of Upright Beasts, a collection of short stories (Coffee House Press, 2015). He was born in Virginia and lives in Brooklyn. He tweets at @thelincoln.

CALVERT MORGAN is an Executive Editor at Riverhead Books. His authors have included Jess Walter, Roxane Gay, Lidia Yuknavitch, Stanley Crouch, Molly Crabapple, Rachel B. Glaser, Porochista Khakpour, Amber Tamblyn, Robin Wasserman, and Kate Zambreno. A graduate of Yale University, Cal previously worked at HarperCollins, where he was editorial director of Harper Perennial, and at St. Martin’s Press. He also currently serves as board chair of the Center for Fiction, the only organization in the United States devoted exclusively to the art of fiction.

MARYA SPENCE was raised in California’s Bay Area, and studied literature at Harvard, where she was Fiction Editor for the Advocate and specialized in creative writing. She went on to get her MFA at New York University and teach undergraduate creative writing there. She also spent these years in her 20’s working and interning at The New Yorker, PAPER Mag, Travel & Leisure, Vanity Fair, Publishers Weekly, METROPOLIS Magazine, and more—with a brief stint in equity research. As someone who values craft from the writer’s perspective, Marya represents a diverse range in fiction and nonfiction, including, but not limited to, literary novels and collections, upmarket commercial fiction, cultural criticism and voice-driven essays, narrative journalism with a humorous or critical edge, and pop culture. She lives in Brooklyn. Her authors include Angelica Baker, Rachel Khong, and Jaroslav Kalfař.

ANNA STEIN is a literary agent at ICM. Prior to joining ICM, Anna Stein opened and ran the New York office of Aitken Alexander Associates from 2009 to 2015. Previously, she was an agent and foreign rights manager at the Irene Skolnick Literary Agency. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Barnard College, an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a M.Phil. in Textual and Visual Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. Her authors include Ben Lerner, Maria Semple, and Hanya Yanagihara.

MONIKA WOODS is a literary agent at Curtis Brown. Her interests include literary and commercial fiction and compelling non-fiction in food, popular culture, science, and current affairs.  Some of her dream projects include historical fiction about feminists, the Roma, and Maxim Lieber, darkly suspenseful stories (both true and made-up) with unreliable narrators, anything about Poland and its history, nonfiction that is creatively critical, and above all, novels written in a singular voice.  Monika lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son, and two cats and can be found writing about the book she just finished at www.booksijustread.com or @booksijustread.