Many writers are visually inspired. An evocative photo can be a great starting point to a story, especially when you are experiencing writer’s block. I’m a big fan of photographer Ashley Inguanta’s work. Spend some time examining this photo, and see where your muse takes you. While this is a flat image, consider the other senses: smells, textures, sound. Photo by Ashley Inguanta. Tara L. Masih is editor of the new annual series The Best Small Fictions, and editor of the bestselling Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction.wwwtaramasih.com
Author: Mom Egg Review
Victoria Redel- Writing Prompt 2 Collect overheard bits of conversation/dialogue during the course of the day. Choose three unrelated bits of dialogue and make use of them (either as dialogue or not) in a piece of flash fiction. Victoria Redel has published books of fiction (novel and short stories) and poetry. Her latest book of short stories, Make Me Do Things, from Four Way Books, is one of my favorites. For more info, visit www.victoriaredel.com.
Victoria Redel Take a title for your story that is an abstraction (e.g. Grief, Love, Bliss) and construct a story that seemingly has nothing to do with the abstraction but earns the title in a unexpected manner. Victoria Redel has published books of fiction (novel and short stories) and poetry. Her latest book of short stories, Make Me Do Things, from Four Way Books, is one of my favorites. For more info, visit www.victoriaredel.com.
Susan Tepper Prompt: Smoke billows thick and black from the chimney of the deserted house. Susan Tepper has been a writer for twenty years. Her sixth book, a fabulist linked-fiction, is set in 19th Century Russia and titled ‘dear Petrov.’
Rick Moody Write a story with no modifiers (I.e., no adjectives, no adverbs). Rick Moody is the award-winning author of twelve books of fiction and memoir, including The Ice Storm, The Black Veil, and Purple America. He has been published in His most recent novel is Hotels of North America. Read more at http://www.rickmoodybooks.com
Lore Segal I want to define habit as that which it is easier to keep doing than to not do. In my twenties I spent a summer with friends in Connecticut, a pain in everybody’s neck because I was never available for the day’s project or outing. I couldn’t, I said, go or do anything till I had done my day’s writing. My particular friend, a man older than I, had the solution. From here on, he said, I was going to get up mornings at seven and sit down and write, or not write as the case might me,…
Minna Dubin – Artist’s Statement: – I am interested in using art to challenge people to think critically about cultural mythologies embedded in our everyday lives. I take familiar things—baseball games or cuddling with a child—and pry them open, look for truths (often my own) that people prefer stay quiet. Writing for me is about careful noticing and reporting back. In March 2015, 2 years after giving birth, I began #MomLists—a guerrilla public art project in the Bay Area, consisting of 150 handwritten lists about my early motherhood experiences—to try to make sense of (and peace with) my new “Mom”…
When I was young, engulfed in a hazy half-life of drug and alcohol- induced close calls, I never imagined that I would live to see children or grandchildren. I could more readily see my spirit sinking away from an emaciated body in a trash bin than looking back on a jumble of lessons learned through years of completions and failures, the continual unveiling of living. Morbid teenaged ruminations have long ago dissolved into a reality-based curiosity. Yes, death will eventually come — there’s no guarantee of a next heartbeat — but more interesting are the infinite unimaginable possibilities of life.…
If only I could find my glasses I could read the morning paper. Now that I have found my spectacles I am unable to read the fine print. Last week, Dr. Evans said the eye drops for the glaucoma and cataracts would help but they have not. This condition is ravishing my body and good looks. I guess surgery will be eminent. If I do, who will care for me? Prepare my meals? Bathe me and accompany me to my appointments until I heal? Getting old isn’t for sissies! I sit at my vanity brushing my long luxurious hair that…
In this lingering light of a late winter against a coral covered sky. I have passed forty-two age my mother was when she died. Once so hot headed I strutted no, left home tearing remnants of my childhood umbilicus to shreds as I rushed into life wearing only the clothes on my back. Free, finally free! Multicolored messenger bag hugging her hips twice the size of my own.…