Writing Prompts

Finally, a perk for paid subscribers!

I taught my first nature writing class with Literary Arts this spring and it was an absolute joy. Nature Writing: Digging Deep was populated by a stellar group that was an earthy mix of earnest and irreverent, all of them contributing in ways that made the class absolutely, undeniably, exceptional. We read nature poems, non-fiction, and fiction excerpts out loud, discussed, wrote based off prompts, and commiserated about the all of it. Class became a time we all looked forward to—a space to leave behind the woes of current-day politics to immerse ourselves in real time discussions of ecological importance, metaphorical and metaphysical quandaries, and how to best hone the unique writer’s voice. We even made up a whole cadre of new words that should, but do not, yet, exist in the dictionary. We laughed, we cried, we imagined what it was like to be a carbon atom. The class was, in a way, the antidote to the protracted anxiety attack that is our current news feed.

Many of these students will be working with me this summer in another focused craft workshop (hybrid online with one in-person session) and I will make sure to post here if there are more spots available. It feels amazing to have that kind of continuation and connection—the gift of continuing to work with excellent humans on their craft.

So, I decided to share some of the prompts I created for class here. Finally, a perk for paid subscribers! My substack has been a parade of tumbleweeds and lonely, echoed whistling of late. My thinking is that, perhaps, if you, dear reader, would like to participate by sharing your writing from the prompts I post in the notes, you might tap into an online version of the synchrony that happened in our class. So try the prompts! If you like, share your writing in the notes on this post. Respond to other’s posts. We all need more community right now. And what better community is there than a supportive writing community?

“It’s also true that I believe poetry ... it’s very sacred. It wishes for a community. It’s a community ritual, certainly. And that’s why, when you write a poem, you write it for anybody and everybody. And you have to be ready to do that out of your single self. It’s a giving. It’s always — it’s a gift. It’s a gift to yourself but it’s a gift to anybody who has a hunger for it.”

— Mary Oliver