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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Ragman

The consensus of the women in Mrs. Proppe’s kitchen was that the Ragman was 90. Mrs. Torto thought 100 because in the bible, what, don’t…

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Prompt #41 — Write Like Holly Simonsen

Simonsen’s piece (view here) proceeds as a triptych, three disparate sections that inform one another while remaining distinct. The first two connect thematically through the…

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Tract (The Soul)

The first slumber party in Angie Bushnell’s unfinished basement I’m light as a feather, afraid I am too fat but stiff as a board, light…

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Never Learned to Play Guitar

I never learned to play guitar because my dad’s body aches. Most of his life has been spent working in hot warehouses. He worked for…

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Prompt #40 — Write Like Andrea Syzdek

Syzdek’s piece (view here) proceeds from the perspective of a child who offers an explanation for the father’s physical deterioration. The stiff joints, limp, and…

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Prompt #39 — Write Like Christopher Higgs

Higgs crafts a speaker (view here) whose confession is both chilling and engaging, largely due to the fact that he never overtly states the motivation…

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