Hi friends. Well, we made it through another 500-year-long week. Luckily, we have some fun events coming up to look forward to, as well as a writing prompt below for you to try out this weekend (or whenever you get to it). Remember, there’s a whole archive of prompts available to paid subscribers. Also remember, making art and staying focused is important right now, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
Upcoming events
I’m teaching a seminar on Generating Essay Ideas on Friday February 14 12-2pm PT/3pm-5pm ET (what better way to spend this “holiday”!). This class will help you brainstorm a couple of intentional and meaningful essay ideas amid all the distraction glutting our brains and inboxes right now. There will be time for questions and discussion of your ideas, too. This class is especially well suited for those braiding personal writing with cultural, political, or literary criticism, but absolutely all are welcome. You need to register for this seminar here, and if you can’t attend live, you’ll get the recording the weekend after the seminar. For paid subscribers of the newsletter, I’ve included a discount code for this seminar at the bottom of this letter, under the paywall. It’s been some time since I was able to offer these seminars, so I’m really excited to start them up again.
Priyanka Mattoo, author of the memoir Bird Milk and Mosquito Bones, will join us live for a salon Monday February 24 at 10am PT/ 1pm ET. This event is for paid subscribers of the newsletter, and will also be recorded for paid subscribers who can’t attend. Link to the virtual event will be sent out morning of.
Amy Shearn, author of the forthcoming novel Animal Instinct, will join us for a live salon Monday March 24 at 10am PT/ 1pm ET. Again, will be recorded for paid subscribers who can’t attend live. Same deal, link to the virtual event will be sent out morning of.
This week’s writing prompt
As a little treat for every paid subscriber who makes this community possible, I share writing prompts most Fridays. These prompts are just to get you going, whether you feel stuck on a current project, want to explore writing in new directions, or just want to write something this weekend for yourself but don’t know how to begin. There is no right or wrong way to do this.
Feel free to post a line or paragraph from what you write and/or just share a bit about what comes up for you in response to the prompt below. If you want access to this and other prompts, plus upcoming author salons and weekly recs, you can upgrade your subscription here.
Please keep these prompts within our community. They have been acquired over many years of teaching, and I use them in my classes. I offer them as a thank you to paid subscribers for the ongoing support.
Growing up & leaving home
This week’s prompt is partially inspired by this wonderful how-to-blow-up-your-life guide by Miranda July, in which she writes:
A friend of mine was talking to a psychic about her 25 year marriage that was now over. "It was probably a mistake," she said. The psychic said No, it wasn't. That it had given her the stability to become herself, to grow up. So a marriage as a continuation of childhood, and then, at mid-life, you finally leave home.
In a class I’m teaching, we recently read Joan Didion’s “On Going Home,” and I had everyone write about their own concept of home.
But I love this this idea of midlife as period in which a woman finally leaves the home in which she grew up, creates her own home, and, well, actually grows up. That tracks. But also, it’s such a generative narrative structure to apply to memoir or fiction (or poetry for that matter).