August Ryan

Wilmington

Established
Literature: Fiction

By: Gail Obenreder

“I’m writing for the teenager I was, and for those who have and will come after me.”

August Ryan grew up in a family that “really prioritized reading and telling / sharing stories.” Their parents and grandparents read “especially voraciously,” and raised in such a supportive literary environment, they have “basically been trying to ‘write a book’ since I learned how to put letters on a page.”

Ryan was raised in southern New Jersey. They studied mass communications and journalism at the University of Delaware, and after graduation they lived in Philadelphia before returning to Delaware in 2021.

Ryan credits their focus and drive to their English and middle- and high school creative writing teachers, who “helped me build my skills and better understand story structure” as they wrote their stories, screenplays, and various drafts of novels. And even from the time Ryan was     a child, their grandfather was supportive of the burgeoning writer.

As an adult, Ryan worked diligently to schedule their writing practice in their free time outside of former studies and their current work in communications. To cement their practice, Ryan decided in 2020 to “invest more time in writing a novel and building my skills.” They have taken several professional writing workshops, and in 2021 they attended the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference to further refine their craft.

excerpt from Mush On: A Novel (2024)

“Ash knows there isn’t one path through grief. There is no simple cure, no one-size-fits-all solution. And even when you take the long way to ‘better,’ you’re traveling a dark road by the light of a matchstick.”

“Ash has goals. She has plans. She has her lists. She has ways of hiding how she feels from the people who don’t get it.”

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As a fiction writer, Ryan seeks to “make my [teenage] readers’ paths through challenging times a little less rocky,” and they are well into their first novel. Mush On follows a teenage girl who decides to fulfill her deceased brother’s lifelong dream and run Alaska’s 1,000-mile Iditarod dogsled race. Now revising the work, Ryan is learning to “tackle challenges like tightening scenes . . . to clarify character motivations and their effects,” something they find to be both rewarding and challenging.

Influenced by well-known authors in their field, the Wilmington writer is especially inspired by the “gorgeous sentence-level prose” of author Nina LaCour. In their own work, Ryan writes to creatively “tackle difficult topics like grief and internalized stigma around neurodivergence.” They are urgently motivated today by “the increased concern about teenagers’ mental health amid national debates over queer teens’ basic rights to self-determination and safety from discrimination.”

Sometimes, Ryan finds it a struggle to write concisely and to “draft without overthinking the material.” But given the multiple challenges facing today’s young people, Ryan      is deeply rewarded by helping their characters to develop and grow, and “the idea that this could also be true for future readers is incredibly gratifying.”

As an athletic break from their writing practice, Ryan skates for Newark’s Diamond State Roller Derby, an all-gender co-ed league formed in 2006. It’s the state’s first skater-owned and operated league and is affiliated with the WFTDA (Women’s Flat Track Derby Association).

The Division’s Fellowship “signifies support for my work that is incredibly encouraging.” Ryan plans to use the award to continue and enhance their research and to help them complete Mush On, always seeking to create “the most beautiful and skillful prose I can write.”

 

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