Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow

Allegra Huston & James Navé

About Allegra Huston

"An absolutely outstanding writer, incapable of writing a dull sentence" - Lynn Barber

My most recent book, co-authored with James Navé, is Write What You Don't Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow. This is the book of the Imaginative Storm method, which Navé and I have developed over the last 20 years. We have also just published 50 Imaginative Storm Writing Prompts, a gorgeous full-color coil-bound workbook, also available on Kindle. My memoir, Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found, attracted the review above from a notoriously tough British reviewer! I've also published a novel, A Stolen Summer (Say My Name in hardback), and two books for writers: How to Edit and Be Edited, and How to Read for an Audience. I've written numerous magazine articles and screenplays. In the past, I was Editorial Director of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and development consultant to the film company Pathé. I wrote and produced the award-winning short film Good Luck, Mr. Gorski: see it on YouTube @imaginativestorm. I live in Taos, New Mexico.

About James Navé

I have made over 10,000 presentations as a poet, teacher, and storyteller. I co-founded The Artist's Way Creativity Camp in partnership with Julia Cameron, author of the perennially bestselling guide to creativity, The Artist's Way. As a founding member of the landmark performance company Poetry Alive!, I memorized over 600 poems and have performed poetry shows and taught writing, creativity, spoken-word, and public speaking worldwide, from Nouakchott, Mauritania, to Galway, Ireland, to Bangkok, Lima, and all across the US. I hold an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA in International Relations from UNCA. My latest book of poems, The 100 Days: A poetic memoir after cancer, will be published by 3: A Taos Press in late 2022. I am also the author of The Road, and co-author of How to Read for an Audience and The Imaginative Storm Writer Training: Write with ease and excitement in 10 sessions. Poetry starts with the imaginative utterances in your mind and continues, much as a musical score continues, long after the final draft. Poetry is meant to be written, read, memorized, published, put to music, and spoken out loud. Poetry is oxygen for your soul. My poetry has appeared in various publications including the North Carolina Literary Review, Asheville Review, Summit, Chokecherries, Jagged Edge Mountain Gear Catalogue, River Oak Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Dirty Goat, Phoebe Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Dislocate, Tightrope Journal, Griffin: Gwynedd-Mercy College, SC Review, Willard and Maple, Paris Lit Up, and the "Tempo" section of the Taos News. I air a weekly long-form interview podcast called Twice 5 Miles Radio: Fertile Ground for Conversations Worth Listening to and Remembering on WPVM-FM, 103.7, Asheville and on SoundCloud. I have been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. I have appeared in Paul Devlin's documentary film SlamNation and Kontent Film's TV pilot KoolJobs. I’ve been the Poetry Slam emcee for The LEAF Festival, and an advisory team of LEAF Global Arts since 1995.