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How to Stay Warmed Up as a Writer: An Interview with Josh Krigman
by Writing Workshops Staff
A month ago
Josh Krigman, a New York City-based writer and teacher, has spent the last nine years helping writers at every level, from senior citizens in the East Village to teenagers in Greece, develop practices that transcend the traditional boundaries of the writing desk.
His upcoming class, Writing Past The Page 6-Week Generative Zoom Intensive, emerged from a student's honest frustration: "I don't have three hours to warm up every time I want to write." It's a sentiment that resonates with anyone who has ever stared at a blank page, waiting for inspiration to strike while precious writing time ticks away.
Krigman's approach is deceptively simple: instead of treating writing as something that happens only when you sit down at your desk, he advocates for expanding your relationship to writing to include the way you move through and process the world. Through observation-based exercises and the development of a personal writing sketchbook, his students learn to translate daily experiences into language, staying in a constant state of creative readiness.
With an MFA from Hunter College and teaching experience that spans institutions from the United Nations International School to National Geographic Expeditions, Krigman brings academic rigor and refreshing accessibility to his work. He's also the co-founder of Club Motte, an international storytelling series that bridges New York and Berlin, demonstrating his commitment to building writing communities that extend far beyond traditional classroom walls.
In our conversation, Krigman reveals the philosophy behind his innovative approach, shares insights from his favorite craft books, and explains why he believes the key to sustainable writing practice lies not in discipline alone, but in fundamentally reimagining what it means to be a writer in daily life.
Q&A with Josh Krigman
Writing Workshops: Hi, Josh. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Josh Krigman: Hello! I'm Josh Krigman, a writer and teacher based in NYC. I've taught creative writing for the last nine years to writers of all ages and at all levels of writing experience, including senior citizens in the East Village and teenagers in Greece (they were American teenagers, I can't speak Greek). I mostly write fiction and have even had a few things published [joshkrigman.com/writing], but in the classroom I like talking about writing in all forms, especially with writers still figuring out their writing voice and who they'd like to be on the page and how.
Writing Workshops: What made you want to teach this specific class? Is it something you are focusing on in your own writing practice? Have you noticed a need to focus on this element of craft?
Josh Krigman: A few years ago, I taught a half-day course at the Center for Fiction that focused on different generative writing prompts. At the end of the course, someone commented that while everything we were doing was useful, they didn't have three hours to warm up every time they wanted to write, and did I have any suggestions for how to warm up faster?
This course was born out of that idea and comes from a belief that there's great benefit to expanding the notion of writing past your daily word count to include the way you move through and process the world. Most of us don't have much time to dedicate to our writing. My hope is that the exercises in this course can help folks stay warmed-up more often, if not all the time, so when you do finally find the time, you're ready.
Writing Workshops: Give us a breakdown of how the course is going to go. What can the students expect? What is your favorite part about this class you've dreamed up?
Josh Krigman: The course is structured around collecting daily observations. A lot of the work we'll do together will be using those observations, both to build new work and to get in the habit of translating the world into language all the time, not just when we sit down to write. We'll do a lot of in-class writing, and discuss our struggles and successes from one week to the next.
My favorite part is when two participants have completely opposite experiences of the same exercise. More than making a lot of good writing, my hope for this course is that everyone leaves with a clearer sense of how to build and sustain a writing practice tailored to their specific needs and the shape of their life. And a lot of that comes from folks with wildly different needs and lives coming together and chopping it up and learning more about what works for them and why.
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Josh Krigman: Roald Dahl. Just an absolute weirdo. The first author that had me staying up reading past my bedtime.
Writing Workshops: What are you currently reading?
Josh Krigman: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard. I've been hearing other people talk about it for years and I finally cracked it!
Writing Workshops: How do you choose what you're working on? When do you know it is the next thing you want to write all the way to THE END?
Josh Krigman: I usually start with an idea that I'm excited about, and in the process of trying to turn that idea into a story, an entirely different story emerges, and if I'm receptive enough to that new story to redo what I've already made, I'll probably make it to the end. Even though I know all of this I'm usually still too stubborn and try to stick with my original idea, and then I'm toast.
Writing Workshops: Where do you find inspiration?
Josh Krigman: In my first drafts I'm pulling a lot from whatever's happening around me—the weather, the subway, my local bodega cat, the jack-hammering outside while I'm trying to write. Anything to keep it moving and surprise myself and not be limited to what my little brain can make up all by itself. New York is loud and endless and if I'm in the right mood there's inspiration everywhere all the time.
Writing Workshops: What is the best piece of writing wisdom you've received that you can pass along to our readers? How did it impact your work? Why has this advice stuck with you?
Josh Krigman: The brilliant Tea Obreht (get up and read her, now!) was one of my MFA professors at Hunter College and she said something I've repeated in nearly every class I've ever led: writing is like sculpture, except you have to make the marble first. As someone who is prone to trying to make every sentence perfect before I even know what I'm trying to say, the advice was a helpful reminder of the purpose of a first draft. You just have to make a lot of marble. And I think because it's a good image, it lodged itself a little more concretely than other similar advice I'd likely received before.
Writing Workshops: What is your favorite book to recommend on the craft of writing? Why this book?
Josh Krigman: I love Craft In The Real World by Matthew Salesses for its reevaluation of the traditional ways we think about story, writing, and the writing workshop. And I'm always returning to Meander, Spiral, Explore by Jane Alison to remember all the different shapes a story can take.
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe?
Josh Krigman: I'm…fun? I think it's easy for writers (myself included) to take writing a bit too seriously and get lost up their own proverbial butts. That's not to say writing isn't important, but if 1.) nobody's relying on you to do it and 2.) it's not fun, it's hard to motivate yourself to get after it. I think if you can find a way for it to be fun, even when it's hard, you're more likely to do it again. So I'd like to think I lead with fun.
I'm also interested in making a space where everything is an opportunity to learn something useful about your relationship to writing. Did you enjoy that exercise? Why? How can you use that to inform the way you build your writing life moving forward? Did you hate it? Same question.
Ready to transform your relationship with writing and stay "warmed up" all the time?
Josh Krigman's approach to observation-based writing offers a sustainable path forward for writers struggling to find time and maintain momentum in their practice. His Writing Past The Page 6-Week Generative Zoom Intensive provides the tools and community support you need to develop a writing sketchbook practice that keeps you connected to your craft beyond the desk. Join other writers in discovering how to translate daily observations into language, build sustainable writing habits, and generate new material from the world around you—because the best writing happens when you're always ready to capture it.
