by Writing Workshops Staff
2 hours ago
Brittany Ackerman has published an essay collection, The Perpetual Motion Machine, a debut novel, The Brittanys, and has a third book, The Style of Your Life, on the way. Even so, she will tell you that every blank page still stares back with the same quiet questions: Can you really do this? Does it even matter? For Ackerman, that uncertainty is a companion to write beside. It is also the beating heart of how she teaches.
In Main Character Energy: Claiming Our Own Narrative Authority, a four-week nonfiction intensive at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature, Ackerman invites writers of memoir, personal essay, and hybrid forms to stop performing on the page and start paying attention. Borrowing a line from Mary Oliver, she treats attention as the beginning of devotion, the engine that turns lived experience into story.
Across four weeks on Zoom, you will learn to locate the emotional center of a personal narrative rather than simply recounting what happened, to shape meaning through specificity and pattern, and to trust your own obsessions as the clues that point toward the story you most need to write. You will leave with four new generative pieces and a firmer claim on your voice.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist Interview with Brittany:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Brittany. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Brittany Ackerman: Hello! I'm Brittany. I write books, essays, and the occasional newsletter when I'm trying to make sense of the world. I'm originally from Riverdale, New York, but I've lived all over-- New York, Florida, Indiana, Tennessee, and now California. I'm endlessly interested in memory, family, girlhood, identity, and the strange stories we tell ourselves to get through difficult moments. I've published an essay collection and a novel, with another novel on the way, and I love helping other writers find the emotional center of their own work through workshops and craft chats. Outside of writing, you'll usually find me reading, doing yoga, chasing after my daughter, or thinking about my next latte long before I've actually made it.
Writing Workshops: What's the thing you wish someone had taught you earlier in your writing life, and how does this class address that?
Brittany Ackerman: I wish someone had told me earlier that great writing isn't about sounding smart or following the right rules, but that it's about paying attention. That simple, yet profound line from Mary Oliver: "Attention is the beginning of devotion" rings true! The strongest stories come from noticing what's emotionally charged, the oddly specific, our deepest (and sometimes darkest!) obsessions, and trusting that those details matter. This class is built around that idea. Rather than sticking to formulas, we'll practice noticing and following our own instincts so that we can write with more confidence, curiosity, and a stronger sense of our own voice.
"The strongest stories come from noticing what's emotionally charged, the oddly specific, our deepest (and sometimes darkest!) obsessions, and trusting that those details matter."
Writing Workshops: If a student walks away from this class with one skill or shift in their writing they didn't have before, what is it?
Brittany Ackerman: Students will leave knowing how to identify the emotional center of a personal story and build a piece around it, rather than simply recounting what happened. They'll learn how to transform lived experience into compelling narrative by paying closer attention to specificity, pattern, and meaning—understanding that the power of a memoir or essay comes not from the event itself, but from the writer's unique way of seeing it.
Writing Workshops: What's the last sentence you read that made you stop and reread it? Type it out for us.
Brittany Ackerman: "All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn't listen to, won't remember, never got right, wasn't around for. All the ways to get to Torrance." From Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.
Ann Patchett reminds us that all the stories go with us. Over four weeks, learn to shape the ones only you can tell.
Enroll in Main Character Energy →Writing Workshops: Finish this sentence: "Most writing classes won't tell you this, but..."
Brittany Ackerman: Most writing classes won't tell you this, but...your obsessions are your best clues to what matters on the page. The details you keep returning to—the fragmented memory, the sacred object, the question you can't stop asking—are usually pointing you toward the story you actually need to write.
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe, in one sentence, not a paragraph?
Brittany Ackerman: Warm, curious, and encouraging—but I'll always push you to dig a little deeper!
"Learning to write alongside that uncertainty and not waiting for confidence to arrive is one of the most valuable lessons my writing life has taught me."
Writing Workshops: What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
Brittany Ackerman: People are often surprised to learn that I still feel intimidated every time I start a new project, or that I, too, get lost or caught up in my own self-doubt. I've published books, but every blank page still stares back at me and questions: Can you really do this? Does it even matter? What's the point? Learning to write alongside that uncertainty and not waiting for confidence to arrive is one of the most valuable lessons my writing life has taught me.
If the blank page still intimidates a writer with three books to her name, then the goal was never to outrun the doubt. It was to keep writing beside it. That is the quiet promise of Main Character Energy: four weeks to sharpen your attention, claim your narrative authority, and build new work from the obsessions only you can chase. Bring the fragmented memory, the sacred object, the question you cannot stop asking. Your seat, and your story, are waiting.
Four weeks, four new pieces, and a stronger claim on your own story. Join Brittany Ackerman on Zoom this July.
Save Your Seat in Main Character Energy →WritingWorkshops.com is an independent, artist-run creative writing school and the official education partner of Electric Literature. Since 2016, we've helped writers strengthen their voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication.
