This workshop will discuss the different approaches to creating and sustaining an author platform for aspiring, “early career” and “emerging” writers in the 21st century. Topics will include the current publishing landscape and a role of author platforms within, organic ways to nurture an online presence, the blessings and curses of social media, finding one’s audience, launching a book, community-building, and literary citizenship. This workshop will be especially useful for writers working on or about to publish their first book, those among the first to professionally pursue writing in their families, and writers of the global majority trying to negotiate the structural inequities in the writing and publication industry.

Instructor bio:

Namrata Poddar writes fiction and nonfiction, serves as Interviews Editor for Kweli, and teaches literature at UCLA. Her debut novel, Border Less, was a Silver Medalist for Best Regional Fiction from 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards, a finalist for Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award and Feminist Press’s Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, and longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her other writing has appeared in several publications including Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Longreads, the Kenyon Review,and The Best Asian Short Stories. She holds a PhD in French literature from the University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Transnational Cultures from UCLA. Find her on Instagram and Threads, @writerpoddar, on Bluesky, @namratapoddar, or on X, @poddar_namrata

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Limited to 15 participants

Fiction, non-fiction

Tuition: $50. Sign-up deadline: February 17