How Bestselling & Award-Winning Author Ramona Ausubel Writes

Bestselling and award-winning author Ramona Ausubel spoke with us about the value of low-residency MFA programs, and how to jumpstart your writing process with her latest book UNSTUCK: 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page. Ramona Ausubel is the author of five books, most recently The Last Animal which was a national bestseller and received the National Book Foundation Science + Nature Prize and was a Barnes & Noble book of the month. She was the recipient of the PEN/USA Fiction Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and has been a finalist for both the California and Colorado Book Awards, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and has had multiple selections as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Her latest non-fiction, Unstuck: 101 Doorways Leading From the Blank Page to the Last Page is a companion for writers at all stages of the process, and described as a book “… about staying in love with your writing: feeling excited, mischievous, productive, and hopeful—the opposite of being stuck. “ A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 from LitHub, Kirkus Reviews described it as, “An upbeat guide to navigating the writing process . . . Warm-hearted and practical, Ausubel emerges as trustworthy companion for a writer who’s stuck anywhere on the challenging road of creativity. Generous, empathetic, and unfailingly encouraging.” Ramona’s work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review daily, One Story, Tin House, The Oxford American, Ploughshares and others. She is a professor at Colorado State University and has taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars, Tin House Writing Workshop, Writing by Writers, the Community of Writers, Bread Loaf Environmental, Writing Workshop Paris and elsewhere. [Discover The Writer Files Extra: Get 'The Writer Files' Podcast Delivered Straight to Your Inbox at writerfiles.fm] [If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click FOLLOW to automatically see new interviews. And drop us a rating or a review wherever you listen] In this file Ramona Ausubel, Milena and I discussed: Why getting stuck is normal and productive rather than something to fear How to fall back in love with your own work Practical exercises to help writers navigate the creative process The magic prompt that never fails Why you need to let "not knowing" to be your companion And a lot more! Show Notes: ramonaausubel.com UNSTUCK: 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page By Ramona Ausubel – April 14, 2026 (Amazon) Ramona Ausubel Amazon Author Page Ramona Ausubel on Instagram⁠⁠ Milena Gonzalez | Writer | Reader | Book Reviewer diary_of_a_book_babe on Instagram Kelton Reid Instagram Kelton Reid on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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How Bestselling & Award-Winning Author Ramona Ausubel Writes is an episode from The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience by Kelton Reid.

This episode is 44:45 long.

This episode was published on Apr 17, 2026.

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