Bestselling author and teacher Natalie Goldberg shares her inspiring personal journey out of a devastating period of writer’s block and back into a life of growth, creativity, and healing.Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore?In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page. When all of her tried and true methods – meditation, sitting still, writing practice – stopped working, she had to take drastic action. She got into her car and left New Mexico in search of a new inventive source. In her journey through the western states, she visited famous literary sites, searching for the spark that would reignite her ability to write.And, next to Hemingway’s grave, she found it. “Get going,” he seemed to say to her, and she did. Now, Natalie shares her story of traveling through literary and personal memory to clarify her way forward, struggling to make sense of her difficult relationships with parents and teachers, and digging into her long-held grief. Ultimately, she discovers how to write through the emptiness in order to fill up the world with compassion, healing, and renewed liveliness.For anyone struggling to reconnect with their own creative source, Writing on Empty is a gentle and instructive guidebook back to remembering what truly matters.

From the author of Writing Down the Bones: This novel about a Brooklyn-born woman’s self-reinvention in Taos, New Mexico, “explodes with wit and vision” (Indianapolis News). Nell Schwartz is a Brooklyn-born Jewish girl who reinvents herself in the communes of Taos, renaming herself Banana Rose—because she’s “bananas.” But Nell struggles with her inner fears and desires, the demands of the artist’s life, and the irrepressible call of home.

While living in New Mexico, Nell falls in love with and marries a free-spirited horn player named Gauguin. They travel east to experience city life, and then to the Midwest to be closer to family, but their tempestuous relationship cools as Nell’s free-spiritedness and Jewishness seem under constant scrutiny. For solace, Nell turns to her friend Anna, a writer who teaches Nell what it means to be an artist. Nell is slowly transformed by love, loss, and art, gaining a new sense of self.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Natalie Goldberg, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Bestselling author and teacher Natalie Goldberg shares her inspiring personal journey out of a devastating period of writer’s block and back into a life of growth, creativity, and healing.Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore?In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page. When all of her tried and true methods – meditation, sitting still, writing practice – stopped working, she had to take drastic action. She got into her car and left New Mexico in search of a new inventive source. In her journey through the western states, she visited famous literary sites, searching for the spark that would reignite her ability to write.And, next to Hemingway’s grave, she found it. “Get going,” he seemed to say to her, and she did. Now, Natalie shares her story of traveling through literary and personal memory to clarify her way forward, struggling to make sense of her difficult relationships with parents and teachers, and digging into her long-held grief. Ultimately, she discovers how to write through the emptiness in order to fill up the world with compassion, healing, and renewed liveliness.For anyone struggling to reconnect with their own creative source, Writing on Empty is a gentle and instructive guidebook back to remembering what truly matters.

From the author of Writing Down the Bones: This novel about a Brooklyn-born woman’s self-reinvention in Taos, New Mexico, “explodes with wit and vision” (Indianapolis News). Nell Schwartz is a Brooklyn-born Jewish girl who reinvents herself in the communes of Taos, renaming herself Banana Rose—because she’s “bananas.” But Nell struggles with her inner fears and desires, the demands of the artist’s life, and the irrepressible call of home.

While living in New Mexico, Nell falls in love with and marries a free-spirited horn player named Gauguin. They travel east to experience city life, and then to the Midwest to be closer to family, but their tempestuous relationship cools as Nell’s free-spiritedness and Jewishness seem under constant scrutiny. For solace, Nell turns to her friend Anna, a writer who teaches Nell what it means to be an artist. Nell is slowly transformed by love, loss, and art, gaining a new sense of self.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Natalie Goldberg, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.