what I learned from doing three fights in four weeks

or: how I finished my novel in a year

FIGHT WEEK is an every-other-week newsletter on writing & fighting. Click to read FIGHT WEEK, by Laura van den Berg, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

One weekend, 2 fights, 2 wins

The first time I read Laura van den Berg’s stories in her debut collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, I was astonished. The stories, teeming with disaster and fantast...

One year later, 6 authors reflect on the experience of publishing their most recent book

my all-night odyssey in the ER & turning setbacks into keys

fight week re-cap

notes on performance & fear

Rita has exorcised her mother’s superstitions, but that hasn’t kept her from developing her own.

on what makes a community hold

plus my first ever AMA

Join Laura van den Berg for her two-part fiction Craft Talk—"Discovering Character"—and write your novel with us!

Max has taken in for development Your Second Wife, a soapy, erotic thriller series based on Laura Van Den Berg's short story of the same name.

An excerpt from STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE by Kristen Arnett, recommended by Laura van den Berg

“In Palestine, the obscurities one encounters are often the only things that can be experienced. How is one to transform that from a destructive force into an intimate way of being in the world, unkno...

on shaping time

you rest the weight on your body & then you push it away

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The Department of English seeks to appoint a senior lecturer on fiction. The appointment is expected to begin on July 1, 2026, but may begin January 1, 2026. The senior lecturer will be responsible fo...