J.L. Scott WRITING TIPS Writing Tip Stuck? Ask your kids to help you out. No matter how old they are, they can help you with ideas for a new piece, how to get a character out of a sticky situation, or even whether to send the piece for publication or not. Sure, their answers might be ridiculous or (hopefully) hilarious, but even if they don’t actually help you solve your problem, they’ll give you some scope on the issue. Bonus: this is a pro parenting tip. Asking your kids for help with your problem normalizes the habit of…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Margo Berdeshevsky WRITING PROMPT Create a connection/conversation with an object, real… or virtual, from your childhood…hold it in your hands or in your arms … and talk with it/to it…tell that object what was the saddest moment of your life since you last held it. Margo Berdeshevsky, born in New York city, often lives and writes in Paris. Her latest collection, Before The Drought, is from Glass Lyre Press, (a finalist for the National Poetry Series.) A new collection, It Is Still Beautiful To Hear The Heart Beat is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Kneel Said the Night (a hybrid…
Laura Geringer Bass WRITING PROMPT Since the publication of my novel, THE GIRL WITH MORE THAN ONE HEART (Abrams 2018) I’ve taught a writing workshop called “Finding the Heart of Your Story.” While on tour, instead of speaking about my own journey from memoir to fiction, I selected prompts from my book and invited the audience to write, using the quotations as jumping off points. I was moved and inspired by what emerged. My recent approach to prompts draws upon quotations from whatever fiction I happen to be reading, classic or contemporary. So, for example from “Dream Children” by Gail…
Kim Addonizio PEAKS AND VALLEYS Sometimes, when you’re having trouble getting started writing, it’s helpful to begin with a list that doesn’t ask you to immediately come up with brilliant poetry. So for this prompt, start by listing two things: First, think of some peak experiences that you or someone else have had. A story that was on the news that delighted you. A friend’s good news. A happy memory from your childhood. Or a recent thrilling occurrence. List as many peak experiences as possible. Then think about some terrible experiences—again, casting a wide net: not just your…
Tara Lynn Masih FLASH PROMPT The pandemic has forced many of us to either stay indoors or to explore the outdoors. Write about a vacation. A vacation inside a home (a “staycation”) or a vacation in the wild. Look back to your childhood for material: Did you go camping? Hiking? What were your family dynamics? Expand on that, or create a whole new vacation that takes place in the future and encapsulates something surprising. Don’t settle for mundane, and distill moments. Pay special attention to place and pull in as many of the senses as you can (sight,…
Review by Michelle Panik When I read the premise of Come Along with Me to the Pasture Now, which that is a woman leaves her city for the countryside, I was instantly intrigued. In these times of digital overload and a protracted pandemic, who hasn’t considered escaping their reality for a simple, unprocessed life? And so, I should be forthright: I read Arielle Greenberg’s latest book both for pleasure and also—in case my world-weary despair should ever reach an actionable level—as a how-to manual. I assumed it would open with a few poems outlining the poet’s current dissatisfaction and…
Review by Ruth Hoberman What do we do with our grief? How do we make sense of the rest of our lives in the face of unbearable loss? Surely everyone, after losing a loved one, has wondered that. For Joan Kwon Glass, the question arose in 2017, when she lost her eleven-year-old nephew Frankie, then, less than two months later, her sister Julia (Frankie’s mother), to suicide. Night Swim is the chronicle of her survival: riveting, wrenching poems of wide-eyed grief. Night Swim’s five chapters are named after the five stages of grief Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described in her 1969…
Join us for the February Flash Challenge! #febflash is a chance for writers to establish or nurture a daily writing practice by focusing on short, flash pieces throughout this, the shortest month. Participants set the goal of writing one piece of flash fiction each day of the month. We will be featuring daily tips, optional writing prompts, advice, and encouragement from established authors and editors to inspire us! You are invited join our private Facebook #febflash group to post observations, successes and challenges, or to add your own prompts and tips to the community. Here’s to a fruitful February of…
Procreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 51st edition of this scholarly discourse. Literature intersects with art to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA #artandmotherhood Feb 2022: Art and words by Clara Aldén The Mother of Frankenstein’s Monster, 2021 The Mother of Frankenstein’s Monster (2021) researches the production of bodies and identities in relation to motherhood. ” My…
Review by Tasslyn Magnusson Christine Stewart-Nuñez is here to guide us into the miraculous space of poetry built by architecture. In The Poet & The Architect, she shows us the blueprints of one family’s journey to connect – through action and word. Can you shape a set of master plans that both reveals one family’s journey and provides a structural map to your own (the reader’s) home of poems? Throughout this collection Stewart-Nuñez highlights the structures that connect us. In “Site Planning” it is the “interstates” and “neural networks” and the “lifelines” and “net” that shape a family’s physical…