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Join us at the Indiana State Library when Indiana’s best established and emerging writers will meet for a full day of classes on the writing craft for the 2025 Gathering of Writers Annual Writing Conference, presented by the Indiana Writers Center and the Indiana Center for the Book.
Featuring a keynote address and a breakout session from bestselling author, Ashley C. Ford. Other breakout sessions include poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction and more presented by Angela Jackson-Brown, Agata Izabela Brewer, Mitchel L.H. Douglas, Barbara Shoup, Sarah Layden, Andrew Black, Melissa Fraterrigo, Lylanne Musselman, Nick Reading, Natalie Tombasco, and Anthony Borruso. You’ll leave full of inspiration, armed with writing drafts ripe for experimentation—along with a hundred other writers who feel the same way.
Ashley C. Ford is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Somebody’s Daughter, published by Flatiron Books. Ford is the former co-host of The HBO companion podcast Lovecraft Country Radio, and the current host of Ben & Jerry’s Into The Mix. She currently lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, poet and fiction writer Kelly Stacy, and their chocolate lab Astro Renegade Ford-Stacy.
Ford has written or guest-edited for ELLE Magazine, Slate, Teen Vogue, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Domino, Cup of Jo, and various other web and print publications.
Keynote address: coming soon
Class Description: coming soon
Agata Izabela Brewer was born and raised in Poland. She is Professor of English and John P. Collett Chair in Rhetoric at Wabash College, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Her publications include The Hunger Book: A Memoir from Communist Poland, winner of the 2022 Gournay Prize. She has also published scholarly books on 20th-century literature, as well as award-winning essays and short stories, and she co-edited a special issue of Interventions on Irish and South African literatures. Agata lives in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where she volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate.
Class Description:
Braiding Creative Nonfiction
This generative workshop will examine the structure of a braided essay and let you play with a variety of approaches to include personal stories, research, and more in your own essay in ways that are productive, creative, and surprising. Access to a laptop or phone recommended but not required.
Sarah Layden is the author of Imagine Your Life Like This, stories; Trip Through Your Wires, a novel; and The Story I Tell Myself About Myself, winner of the Sonder Press Chapbook Competition. She is co-author with Bryan Furuness of The Invisible Art of Literary Editing. Her short fiction appears in Boston Review, Booth, Blackbird, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Best Microfiction 2020, and elsewhere, with recent nonfiction in The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Salon, The Millions, and River Teeth. She is an Associate Professor of English at Indiana University Indianapolis, where she serves as faculty advisor to genesis, the campus literary and art magazine. http://sarahlayden.
Class Description:
No Joke: Satire and Humor that Surprises
Did you know? Writing short humor and satire will give you bonus IQ points, pep, and a shinier, healthier coat with less shedding. No guarantees, but it’s worth a try. Whether you’re compelled by the political, personal, or whimsical, there are many modes to choose from, and the ol’ sideways angle skewers with surprise. Channel your funny voice onto the page with Sarah Layden, whose satire and short humor appear in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Washington Post, Salon, The Belladonna, Points in Case, and elsewhere, but not The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs.
Barbara Shoup is the author of eight novels for adults and young adults, most recently An American Tune and Looking for Jack Kerouac, as well as a memoir about writing, A Commotion in Your Heart, and Novel Ideas: Contemporary Authors Share the Creative Process. Shoup is the Writer-in-Residence at the Indiana Writers Center and a faculty member at Art Workshop International, in Assisi Italy. She hosts the Substack newsletter Book Pilgrim. A new YA, About Grace, is forthcoming from Querencia Press in 2024.
Class Description:
So Your Want to Write a Novel
E.L. Doctorow said, “A book begins as a private excitement of the mind.”
But how do you get from that private excitement of the mind to words on the page? Do you make an outline or just jump in? Do you choose point of view or does point of view choose you? What the heck is plot, anyway — and how do you sustain it? This class will address these questions and others, as well as offer insight into the process of writing a novel and strategies to help you along the way.
Angela Jackson-Brown is an award-winning writer, poet and playwright who is an Associate Professor in the creative writing program at Indiana University in Bloomington. She also teaches in the graduate program at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. She is a graduate of Troy University, Auburn University and the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. She has published her short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry in journals like The Louisville Journal and the Appalachian Review. She is the author of Drinking From a Bitter Cup, House Repairs, When Stars Rain Down and The Light Always Breaks. Her novels have received starred reviews from the Library Journal and glowing reviews from Alabama Public Library, Buzzfeed, Parade Magazine, and Women’s Weekly, just to name a few. When Stars Rain Down was named a finalist for the 2021 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction, longlisted for the Granum Foundation Award, and shortlisted for the 2022 Indiana Authors Award. In October of 2023, Angela’s next novel, Homeward, a follow-up to When Stars Rain Down, will be published by Harper Muse.
Class Description:
Shifting Gears: Writing Across Genres with Confidence
What happens when a writer known for one genre dares to write in another? Whether you’re moving from literary fiction to horror, memoir to mystery, or historical fiction to fantasy, crossing genres can feel both exhilarating and intimidating. In this interactive one-hour workshop, we’ll explore the challenges and opportunities that come with changing literary lanes. We’ll discuss what skills transfer across genres, where expectations shift, and how to adapt your creative voice without losing your artistic identity. Participants will engage in discussion, craft strategies for easing the transition, and begin working on a generative writing exercise that invites them to experiment with genre in real time. Facilitated by award-winning author Angela Jackson-Brown—who recently shifted her attention from writing historical fiction to fantasy—this workshop is ideal for writers who are curious about expanding their range or reimagining their current work through a new lens.
Andrew Black is a playwright and a teacher of playwrights. He currently lives in Indianapolis, having recently returned from Columbia, Missouri, where he completed a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Missouri in 2023. His area of research is best practices for teaching playwriting. Many of his research discoveries find their way into his classes for the IWC. His first book (Signature Pedagogies for the Playwriting Classroom) was published by Bloomsbury in July 2025, and his second book (The Playwriting Curriculum) will be published by Gitelman & Good later in 2025. Andrew has been on the faculty of the Indiana Writers Center since 2012 and is the founder of the Indiana Playwrights Circle. Check out his website at www.andrewblackplaywright.com
Class Description:
The Art and Science of Storytelling
Why do stories have such a powerful impact on the reader or an audience? In this interactive session, participants will learn about the science behind story. There are neurological patterns that predispose humans to think in terms of story; do we know how to leverage them? There have been changes in the function of story over time. Do we know how to take advantage of them? There are specific elements that define a well-told story. What are they and how do writers use them? Participants will apply these ideas to their own personal “origin story” and practice the art of oral storytelling as they develop and tell their own stories to each other.
Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist. Her work has appeared in Poetry Breakfast, The Tipton Poetry Journal, The Indianapolis Review, and Pank, among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of the poetry collection, It’s Not Love, Unfortunately (Chatter House Press, 2018). She’s the co-author of two other collections, Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013), and Marriage Maps and Driven Destinies (Chatter House Press, 2023). She’s the author of six poetry chapbooks including Staring Dementia in the Face (Finishing Line Press, 2023). A six-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Musselman’s poems are included in the Inverse Poetry Archive, a collection of Hoosier poets, housed at the Indiana State Library. She teaches writing at both the University of Indianapolis and Ivy Tech Community College and writing workshops at Indiana Writers Center and E. B. Ball Center at Ball State. She’s currently working on several poetry collections.
Class Description:
Open Up to Poetry
Do you have some experiences in life that you feel are taboo? Do you have some material locked inside that you feel is too hard to write about? Does the thought of writing these hard things keep you from writing? In this session, you’ll learn to use poetry as your “personal therapist,” write about personal traumas and hard times, but look for places for humor or insights that can connect with others and help it to become a universal experience. I’ve written about such things as abusive spouses, an alcoholic partner, deaths of pets, death of grandparents, parents, friends, and dealing with the trials of caregiving my mom with dementia…but through it all, I was able to write my way through and heal…and find my way back to joy with poetry. This session can be a positive experience even if you feel apprehensive at first. I will share some of my “hard” poems and then we will work with several prompts to get writing.
Melissa Fraterrigo’s forthcoming memoir, The Perils of Girlhood was published by the University of Nebraska Press on September 1. She is also the author of the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press), as well as the short story collection The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies from storySouth and Shenandoah to Notre Dame Review, Sou’wester and The Millions. A graduate of the University of Iowa (BA) and Bowling Green State University (MFA), she teaches creative writing at Purdue University, in the Butler University MFA in Creative Writing program, and is also the founder and executive director of the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, Indiana, where she offers classes on the art and craft of writing. She lives with her husband and two daughters in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Class Description:
Ts, Timelines, and Other Tricks Toward Your Memoir’s First Draft
You’ve likely heard that everyone has a book inside them. I’d like to rephrase that–everyone has the potential to write a book. This works because rather than supposing our book is just there, waiting to be released, it considers the person and how we play a part in the creative process. In this workshop, we’ll learn how to get out of our own way by using the letter T, timelines, and other tricks to propel you toward your memoir’s first draft.
Mitchell L. H. Douglas is the author of dying in the scarecrow’s arms, \blak\ \al-fə bet\, winner of the Persea Books Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award, and Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem, an NAACP Image Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominee. His “Poem that Begins w/a Tweet About Gwendolyn Brooks” was featured in This is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets edited by New York Times best-selling author Kwame Alexander. A 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University Indianapolis. His visual art has been published in The Adroit Journal, The Offing, and Callaloo. His fourth poetry collection will be published by Persea Books in 2026.
Class Description:
Mapping Your Mythology: The Path to Metaphor and Subtext in Poetry
We are familiar with allusions to Greek mythology in Western literature, a tradition that connects the writer, the world at large, and its cultural and historical imagination. But what happens when writers use their own quirks or “myths” as a lens for new poems? This generative poetry workshop will introduce participants to poets who have successfully created their own mythology, identify important biographical information to create personal myths, and enrich your poems with metaphor and subtext.
Nick Reading is the author of Love & Sundries (Split Lip Press) and The Party In Question, winner of the Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. His work has appeared in many journals including Barrow Street, Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, Painted Bride Quarterly and jubilat. He serves as poetry editor for Sport Literate and lives in Indianapolis where he is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Butler University. For more, visit nickreading.com
Class Description:
coming soon
Natalie Louise Tombasco is a poet from Staten Island, NY, where she proudly received a public school education and was a First-Gen CUNY student. Tombasco holds an MFA from Butler University and a PhD in creative writing and gender studies from Florida State University. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tampa and Nonfiction Editor of Tampa Review. Her debut collection, Milk for Gall, was the winner of the 2023 Michael Waters Poetry Prize (Southern Indiana Review Press). It was named a finalist for the 2024 Big Other Book Award and the 2025 Midwest Book Award. Recent work can be found in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Diode Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. Find out more at www.natalielouisetombasco.com
Class Description:
coming soon
Anthony Borruso is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at The University of South Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University where he served as Poetry Editor for Southeast Review. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, The Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2024 Louise Bogan Poetry Award, his debut collection Splice will be published in July 2025 by Trio House Press.
Class Description:
coming soon
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