Distress

You kick me out of the house for the afternoon and tell me to call you when I feel scared about something. “You’re so calm,”…

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Prompt #46 — Write Like Kevin Sampsell

In Sampsell’s “Distress” (view here), we are presented with the scenario of a woman asking a man to call her when he finds himself in…

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Stealing Cherries by Marina Rubin

Stealing Cherries by Marina Rubin Manic D Press Paperback, 93 pages ISBN: 978-1-933149-80-6 I hope I can be forgiven for reading Marina Rubin’s collection of…

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Ex Pat

You’ve pocketed twenty canciones in the San Miguel morning, walking the cobbled streets. Wonder how they did this to the poets; sliced off hands to…

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Prompt #45 — Write like Todd Dillard

Here (view piece), Todd Dillard has created a story that uses the foreign language of a country to illustrate the traveler’s ignorance. We can see…

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Twenty-Eight

We’re in bed again and you’re peeling a kiwi with your fingers. Get a knife, I say. It’s only a suggestion. I’m always telling you…

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Prompt #44 — Write like Katherine Megear

Meagear’s piece (view here) recounts an experience that both characters participated in, using second person as if the speaker were narrating it to the other…

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Center for Quandary Control

Officials multiply in number while the rest of us dwindle. You can see the signs even in the retail district, where shops that once sold…

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Prompt #43 — Write Like Fred Muratori

Muratori’s speaker (view here) has almost no authority in his life; his ideas remain largely unacknowledged or ignored. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that he is…

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Prompt #42 — Write Like Michael K. Meyers

Meyers’s piece (view here) presents a character—Mr. Ragman—who is entirely figment. Readers do not get his actual name, his actual age, or any concrete details…

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