45:15 Online: A Communal Writing Experience

Saturday, 4:00 pm EDT - 6:00 pm EDT August 20, 2022

Online via Zoom

Approaching creative projects with a clear and focused mind can be a challenge. Revive your motivation to write at 45:15, a free community writing event held online via Zoom!

Led by Caleb Gayle, one of our 2021 Emerging Writer Fellows, participants will write silently for two hours—in 45-minute intervals followed by a 15-minute break—working on current or new material. A writing prompt will not be provided. Afterward, Virginia Chang, a certified Jivamukti yoga teacher, will guide participants in mindful movement and meditation. While writing, the body is still and the mind focused. We will awaken the body and relax the mind using a combination of yoga, breathwork, and meditation. No mat required, just a willingness to participate and listen. This mindful experience should leave you feeling calm yet energized.

45:15 is inspired by Ellen Sussman’s “unit system” for a disciplined and generative writing practice detailed in her Poets & Writers essay, “A Writer’s Daily Habit: Four Steps to Higher Productivity.” She argues that by taking periodic breaks from your writing or thinking about your writing, you are allowing your subconscious to keep creating. When you sit down again, you’ll feel more energized and ready to kick out another forty-five minutes of concentrated writing.

Led by

Caleb J. Gayle

Caleb J. Gayle

Caleb J. Gayle writes about the impact of history on race and identity, both in his nonfiction and fiction. Gayle’s writing has been featured in the New York Times magazine, the Atlantic, the Guardian, the Three Penny Review, Guernica (forthcoming), the Harvard Review, Pacific Standard, Time magazine, the New Republic, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and more. Gayle is an author of the forthcoming nonfiction book from Riverhead Books, a narrative account of how many Black Native Americans were marginalized by white supremacy in America. Gayle completed both his MBA and master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Business School and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Castro
Virginia Chang

Virginia Chang

Virginia Chang, Ph.D., is a certified Jivamukti yoga teacher and life-long practitioner who incorporates meditation and breathwork into her approach that brings a mindfulness and peace to her work. A Certified End-of-Life Doula and founder of Till The Last, she currently works with the dying and their loved ones to approach end of life in a positive, meaningful, and affirming way. When relaxing, she can be found reading, playing the harp, or exercising. She loves books and is a volunteer reader for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and Emerging Writer Fellowships.