The Break is a monthly virtual gathering of writers and artists lead by Kaveh Akbar, celebrating amongness, collaboration, and interdisciplinary creative experimentation. Though many of the activities and discussions orbit or are inflected by recovery themes (Akbar has been in active recovery for eight years), participants are not required to self-identify as being in recovery to participate. Over the quarantine, The Break has had several guest instructors as well, with graphic novelist Erin Williams leading recovery-based drawing activities, memoirist Leslie Jamison leading essay writing, and poet Angel Nafis playing poetry games with the group. Regular attendees often share major life and creative developments, and the group continues to grow both in headcount and in pedagogical conceit!

Kaveh Akbar is a poet, writer, teacher and the poetry editor for The Nation. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, Paris Review, Poetry, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His New York Times bestselling debut novel, Martyr! was published by Knopf in 2024; he is also the author of the poetry collections Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf, 2021), Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James, 2017), and Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry, 2016). Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph and Warren Wilson Colleges.

Virtual/remote, Zoom.