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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
Legacy – Rage Hezekiah Legacy is a new series in which poets and writers reflect on a writer or writers who inspired them, whose works spoke to and influenced them and whose legacy continues to inform their work. Curated by…
By Ana C.H. Silva One of my poetry mothers, Sharon Dolin, once gently challenged me, “Who are you reading right now?” I appreciated what she was really saying: to be a good writer, you need to be a great…
I have never been one to put off work. Quite the opposite, really. I complete tasks weeks, sometimes months in advance. I am organized, a self-starter, ahead of the game at all times. (When I try to arrive fashionably late…
It’s probably a small miracle that I am even writing this. Time to write has become an even more precious commodity in motherhood. Yet, there is a need to write that did not go away when I became a new…
Poets discuss their experiences participating in the “Seeking Your Voice” writing workshop and in “The Mother Dispossessed” project: Srividya Kannan Ramachandran feels that the workshop has improved her writing and helped her develop a better appreciation for poetry. She…
An Interview by J.P. Howard, MER VOX Editor-at-Large, of Mireya Perez-Bustillo and Patsie Alicia Ifill I’ve been thinking a lot about friendships between women, and in particular between women writers, and how we often sustain one another. Not only do…