About His Writing
Mishka Shubaly first took to the stage as a public speaker at the tender age of seven (his mother still has that trophy somewhere). He has spoken about writing, recovery, and his unorthodox path to success as a writer and musician at the National Arts Club and Union Hall in New York, and at high schools around the country. His narrative about surviving a shipwreck for The Moth has been broadcast around the country on NPR.
Mishka Shubaly received the Dean's Fellowship at Columbia University for graduate study in Fiction. His six Kindle Singles for Amazon have all been bestsellers. His first full-length memoir, "I Swear I'll Make It Up to You: a life on the low road" was published in 2016 by PublicAffairs. He teaches writing at the Yale Writers Conference.
About his Workshop at Yale University
Mishka Shubaly has been teaching nonfiction writing at Yale University since 2017, where his raw, compassionate, and often darkly funny approach to storytelling has earned him a loyal following. Over the years, his workshops have become a sought-after experience for students eager to write with emotional honesty and sharpen their narrative voice.
His teaching style has been described as “transformative,” with students praising his ability to push them beyond their comfort zones to uncover the deeper truths within their personal stories. One student wrote that “he teaches with the kind of brutal empathy that makes you braver on the page,” while another called his class “a gift—gritty, funny, and deeply human.”
By combining his own experiences as a bestselling memoirist, touring musician, and recovering addict, Shubaly offers students more than writing advice—he offers a creative process rooted in resilience, self-examination, and unflinching truth. His workshops are not only about telling better stories, but about becoming more fearless, insightful storytellers.