News & Features

Prompt #56 — Write Like Matt Bell

Writing flash doesn’t have to be like a choose your own adventure novel. You don’t have to write just one version of a story—you can…

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Pitch

He tells me I wouldn’t survive on the East Side. He tells me I wouldn’t sur­vive on the West Side. He’s talking about Detroit. I…

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Prompt #55 — Write Like James R. Tomlinson

Tomlinson tells this complex story (view here) primarily in dialog. This isn’t often successfully done, but Tomlinson pulls it off by recalling some of the speech…

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Prompt #54 — Write Like Judy Huddleston

This piece (view here) is amazingly short, and Huddleston leaves out just the right amount of mundane details. Many times, details about break ups or other…

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Car Wash

Not the regular kind, but Do-It-Yourself. Out in the middle of Utah or Nevada, somewhere hot and brown and desolate. So dry the water felt…

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Prompt #53 — Write Like Miguel Morales

In “For Tourists Such As Yourself” (view here), Morales writes about a country without drawing from cultural stereotypes. Instead, he choses to personify the country…

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For Tourists Such As Yourself

Poland loves you, but you never come to Poland. Why is that? We are a big nation. We contain mindful, thriving people. We’ve become safe…

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Prompt #52 — Write Like Donora Hillard

Hilliard’s piece (view here) takes its inspiration, and title, from the genre of tragedy, then considers how or if that genre still exists as a…

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American Tragedy

This lake has a woman’s name. On the drive up here, upstate New York spread out before us like an old wound, she told me…

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Prompt #51 — Write Like Josh Maday

By revisiting the traditional Pinocchio story (view here), Maday embraces a pre-existing narrative and its conventions. In doing so, he gains some advantage—readers are likely…

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