“Hamburger engages the reader with wonderfully flawed characters and through the history, legend, and propaganda of modern Jewish life.” —Booklist

Aaron Hamburger is the author of a story collection titled THE VIEW FROM STALIN’S HEAD which was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and nominated for a Violet Quill Award. He has also written three novels: FAITH FOR BEGINNERS, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, NIRVANA IS HERE, winner of a Bronze Medal from the 2019 Foreword Reviews Indies Book Awards, and HOTEL CUBA, due out from Harper Perennial in 2023.

His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, Tin House, Michigan Quarterly Review, Subtropics, Crazyhorse, Boulevard, Poets & Writers, Tablet, O, the Oprah Magazine, Out, The Massachusetts Review, The Bennington Review, Nerve, Time Out, Details, and The Forward. He has also won fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation as well as first prize in the Dornstein Contest for Young Jewish Writers, and his short fiction and creative non-fiction have received special mentions in the Pushcart Prizes.

He has taught creative writing at Columbia University, the George Washington University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and the Stonecoast MFA Program.

Aaron's Featured Titles

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The Power of Getting Things Wrong

How getting comfortable with doubt and being in error is an essential life skill.

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Dangerous Writing: Writing about Extreme States of Emotion

Can be tailored to fit a talk or workshop format

How writing about extreme states of emotion mirrors people’s states of mind when experiencing those emotions.

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How Food Writing Fed My Fiction

How Aaron learned to create and test recipes, write restaurant reviews, and do food-based features. How the lessons he learned made him a better writer.

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Breaking Through the Myth of Writer's Block

How to take apart the idea known as “writer’s block” to help creative people deal with internal and external obstacles to doing their work.

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Learning to Write My #metoo Story

How confronting a personal trauma through art brought healing.

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The Challenges and Rewards of Writing Historical Fiction

The ins and outs of how to write and do research about a story from a previous time period.

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How I Wrote a Novel to Solve the Mystery of a Family Photo

The true story of how a mysterious photo of Aaron’s grandmother in male drag led him to write a novel.

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How My Political Activism Helped Me Get My Life Back on Track

How learning to stand up for his political values in front of strangers inspired Aaron to stand up for himself in other ways.

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Student Workshop: How to Be Your Own Best Editor

In this hands-on class, we’ll try out specific strategies to make your revision process more effective and efficient, so you can raise the level of any piece of writing you’re working on. We’ll talk about editing content on the macro level as well as fine-tuning words, sentences, and paragraphs to improve flow and clarity. By the end of this class, you’ll not only improve your own editing skills but also be a better judge of how well you are edited by others in the future.

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Aaron’s News

Aaron’s Reviews

Selected Publications

Honors, Awards & Recognition

2023 Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize by Lambda Literary
Rome Prize Winner
Violet Quill Award Nominee
Bronze Medal Winner
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities: Arts and Humanities Fellowship
Civitella Ranieri Foundation: Civitella Ranieri Fellowship
Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship

Media Kit

By clicking the link below you will be directed to a Google Docs Folder
where you can download author photos and cover images.

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