Craft Seminar: This is How You Stay Motivated to Write with Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Craft Seminar: This is How You Stay Motivated to Write with Maurice Carlos Ruffin
1 Session: Monday, October 6
6:00-8:00pm ET
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is a Professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University and an instructor at Randolph College Low-Res MFA program. He is the author of three New York Times Editor's Choice books, including the novel The American Daughters (One World, 2024) and the story collection, The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You (One World, 2021) and We Cast a Shadow (One World, 2019). He holds a masters in psychology.
With all the distractions of family, work, and life, it can be difficult to maintain a writing practice. Especially when it feels like your focus should be elsewhere. But writing is an art that holds a mirror up to society. In these conflict filled times, we need your mirror more than ever.
In this seminar, we will discuss numerous techniques to stay engaged and productive, including strategies that I've employed in my own work. Tips and techniques include well-known concepts such as mindfulness and schedule keeping, but we'll also deep dive into internal positive/negative self talk, core motivations, and goal making that are the keys to writing success. This talk is both practical and inspirational.
Workshop Highlights:
A discussion of techniques to overcome lack of motivation and writers block.
Offering tips such as mindfulness and schedule keeping.
Deep dive into core motivations and related concepts to keep the writer engaged in their work.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s most recent book is The American Daughters (One World, 2024), which Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called "a vibrant picture of antebellum New Orleans." He is also the author of the story collection The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You (One World, 2021), which was a New York Times Editors' Choice, a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and longlisted for the Story Prize. His first book, We Cast a Shadow (One World, 2019), was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. It was a New York Times Editors' Choice and was longlisted for the 2021 DUBLIN Literary Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Kenyon Review, and Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America.