WRITING PROMPTS

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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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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Prompt #38 — Write Like Devin Murphy

Murphy’s piece (view here) takes an unexpected event—the death of the fox—and uses it to reveal several different elements of human nature in the story’s…

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Prompt #37 — Write Like Kate Cortese

By starting in media res, this piece (view here) asserts a kind of familiarity with readers. However, it skillfully weaves in elements of backstory, ensuring…

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Prompt #36 — Write Like Bryan Owens

Owens’s piece (view here) explores the sublime, considering the emotional relays between beauty and terror and the contrast between an expansive natural world and a…

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Prompt #35 — Write Like Gene Morgan

The oft-mumbled misanthropic curse, “fucking people” is transformed beautifully in Morgan’s piece (view here). He imagines a world in which sexual intercourse overcomes people in…

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Prompt #34 — Write Like Kendra Grant Malone

Writing a normal situation into a strange one can be a fun way to turn a story on its head. In “45 Walker Street” (view…

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Prompt #33 — Write Like Lou Amyx

Amyx’s piece (view here) departs from the typical travelogue in that it focuses more on the speaker’s haphazard traveling companions than the destination. Although the…

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Prompt #32 — Write Like Jasmine Dreame Wagner

In Wagner’s story (view story here), the scientific idea of String Theory—that there is a potential set of equations that can link Newtonian and Particle…

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