interview+photography by Jorge Perezchica
As the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival prepares to return in 2026, Coachella Magazine is revisiting a highlight from last year’s event. At the 2025 festival, two-time National Book Award–winning novelist Jesmyn Ward spoke with us in person about the power of storytelling, the discipline of writing, and the resilience required to sustain a literary life—along with the journey that shaped her voice and her latest novel, Let Us Descend.
“I’m Jesmyn Ward, I’m a novelist,” she began, noting that her body of work includes novels, a memoir, and essays. Her calling, she explained, emerged early. “I knew that I wanted to be a writer when I was a teenager, when I was in high school, because I was a reader first.” As a youth, reading was transformative. “Storytelling was magical to me… the fact that someone could write a story and transport you to another world was amazing to me.”
Although the desire arrived early, the discipline came later. Ward shared that she didn’t fully commit to the practice of writing “until I graduated from college… I was in my early 20s.” During that formative period, she immersed herself in the work of writers who shaped her literary imagination, including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Jean Toomer, and Louise Erdrich, as well as poets like Joy Harjo and Li-Young Lee. Their work, she said, was “so beautiful and transported me in a way that made me want to write like they did.”
Her most recent novel, Let Us Descend, is grounded in history and reclamation. The book follows an enslaved teenage girl in the early 1800s, tracing her journey from the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans. Ward explained that the novel was sparked by a moment of realization while listening to NPR. “It made me realize how that history had been erased from the landscape, and so I wanted to write a story that explored that, you know, and brought it back to life.”
On Ward’s creative process, writing is an intensely focused and solitary act. “Noise is very distracting to me,” she said. “I have to hear the sentences… the rhythm of the paragraphs, the rhythm of the pages.” Silence is essential, which means no music, no coffee shops, and no public spaces—just a quiet room at home. Her rituals are simple: “I usually have tea or coffee because I need the caffeine,” she said with a smile, adding that consistency matters most. Writing, she believes, is like physical training. “If I do it five days a week, at least two hours a day… it’s almost like exercising a muscle.”
Outside of writing, Ward finds inspiration in movement and reading. “I like walking… outside in nature,” she said, noting that it helps her enter a creative headspace. Reading remains a constant source of motivation and learning. “I’m constantly reading… so that I can find beauty in what other people are doing and then try to incorporate that or try to emulate that in my own work.”
When asked about a book that profoundly changed her life, Ward pointed to Kiese Laymon’s essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. She read it while struggling to write her own memoir. “For the first time I was writing my real life… and so I was afraid,” she admitted. Laymon’s work, she said, was “so honest, was fearless,” yet deeply tender toward the reader. “It taught me a lot about writing nonfiction, about writing real life.”
Being part of the Rancho Mirage Writer’s Festival, Ward said, is about connection. “Just being in community with so many writers who I haven’t had the opportunity to meet,” she shared, along with the chance to engage in panels, interviews, and conversations as both a participant and audience member.
Her advice to aspiring writers is direct and hard-earned. “Read everything,” she said, explaining that reading teaches writers what resonates with them creatively. She also emphasized discipline: “Write every day… even when it isn’t coming easily.” Rejection, she warned, is unavoidable. “You’ll be rejected hundreds of times,” she said, but persistence is essential. “You just have to do that until you find the one person who’s gonna say yes to you.”
Ward knows that struggle firsthand. “The biggest challenge for me is probably being rejected so much,” she said, recalling moments when she nearly quit. What kept her going was a quiet inner resolve. “There was a little voice… that said, just try one more time.” That persistence eventually led to her first acceptance—and many more since.
Looking ahead, Ward shared that she is currently working on “a middle grade children’s book,” before returning once again to adult novels. At the heart of it all, what she loves most about being a writer remains personal. “I love being able to live in my imagination,” she said, “and I love meeting readers… who engage with my work.”
As for film adaptations, Ward remains hopeful. “I would love for that to happen,” she said, adding with humility that she’s leaving that possibility to the future. “A lot of fingers crossed.”
At the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival, Jesmyn Ward reminded audiences that writing is not just an act of creativity, but of endurance—one sustained by imagination, discipline, and the courage to keep going, one more time.
The Rancho Mirage Writers Festival returns January 28–30, 2026, when the Twelfth Annual event will continue its two-year theme celebrating the United States Semiquincentennial. Often called the “Coachella for the brain,” the festival brings together world-class writers, emerging voices, and curious readers for three days of thoughtful conversation in an intimate desert setting. From literature and history to politics and culture, the festival offers a rare opportunity to engage directly with the ideas shaping our world—reminding us that books connect us, conversations inspire us, and words still matter.
Rancho Mirage Writers Festival
January 28-30, 2026
Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory