Vinyl records, audiocassette tapes, videocassettes, CDs, DVDs, hard-copy books, print editions of newspapers and magazines. Whether these tangible forms of media conjure up personal memories or seem like vintage vestiges from a time before you were born, there’s no denying that physical media undergoes continual waves of resurgence among both serious collectors and pop culture trend followers. Write an essay that revolves around your experiences with physical media, including encounters or stories from older family members or friends. Reflect on the differences in using various types of media and ideas about convenience, possession, and preservation.

Why did the chicken cross the road? In Tad Friend’s 2002 New Yorker piece “In Search of the World’s Funniest Joke,” he details the work of Dr. Richard Wiseman, a British psychologist who conducted a global humor study that included an experiment comparing scores for the same joke with different animals inserted in it. “We found that the funniest animal of all is a duck,” said Wiseman. “So science has determined that, if you’re going to tell a talking-animal joke, make it a duck.” Write a short story that involves a duck, whether in a main role, or in a minor appearance. See if you can facilitate the duck’s function as a humorous device: Is its appearance unexpectedly wacky or quirky? Do the human characters respond in a humorous way, or does the hilarity extend from a deadpan atmosphere?

Wim Wenders’s 2023 Oscar-nominated film Perfect Days follows the life of a man named Hirayama, who cleans public toilets in Tokyo for work. Hirayama adheres to routines in his daily activities, waking to the sound of someone sweeping outside, brushing his teeth, misting his plants, buying a coffee from the vending machine outside of his apartment, playing cassette tapes on his commute, and taking photos with film cameras while on his lunch break. His work tasks are completed with integrity, even using a jerry-rigged mirror to check the undersides of the toilets he cleans. The character speaks very little and the focus remains on the simple beauty of his everyday experiences. Write a poem that chronicles one day in your life, encapsulating both mundane routine and beauty beheld. Consider playing with repetition, line breaks, and spacing, to reflect the regular and irregular rhythms of your day.

“A herd of beautiful wild / ponies running free / across the plains.” Aristilde Kirby’s poem “Daria Ukiyo-e,” published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, begins with an epigraph of a quote from the animated MTV series Daria, which premiered in the late nineties. Select a quotation from a favorite television series that has stayed with you and compose a personal essay that revolves around themes and emotions that the reference calls up. Give yourself the freedom to choose inspiring lines from unexpected and surprising sources, and diverge from the context of the original scene to take it in a direction that resonates with your own life.

Airport security lines: a place for aesthetically pleasing arrangements of items or high stress rushing? A recent viral social media trend that involves taking photos of meticulously curated TSA bins presents the possibility that there are those who view an airport security line as an influencer opportunity rather than a time-consuming and inconvenient obligation. Write a short story that focuses on a confrontation of opposing viewpoints set in an airport, a locale where people are oftentimes stressed about getting to their flights on time, running into delays, and scrutinizing the plans for their trips. Try incorporating some humor, light or dark, into the situation or tease out an element of suspense.

In the four lines of the poem “Quiet Night Thoughts” by Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai, the speaker expresses a sentiment of longing for home, brought on by the somber imagery of moonlight shining in through a bedroom window. In celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, an occasion for gatherings to gaze at the full moon that leads up to the autumnal equinox, write a poem that uses the moon as a symbol of unity to reflect on the desire to reunite with loved ones—whether they be relatives near or far, or your chosen family. As you gaze at the moon in all its luminosity, roundness, and fullness, what emotions arise surrounding social harmony or disharmony?

In the 2023 horror film No One Will Save You, written and directed by Brian Duffield, a young woman named Brynn finds herself fighting off aliens who have invaded her home. In the course of the movie’s entire ninety-three minutes, Brynn speaks only five words. Instead of relying on dialogue, the building tension in the story is propelled by the facial expressions and body language of actor Kaitlyn Dever and the physical constraints of the premise—the lonely and isolated protagonist, shunned by the locals, needs to stay quiet as she confronts the alien invaders. Taking a cue from this concept, write a lyric essay that looks back on a stressful or tense event from your past. Focus on observations of actions, objects, surroundings, and people—including facial expressions and perceived emotions—and try to forgo inner monologue. What can you accomplish with primarily physical descriptions?

Earlier this month, Science journal published an article detailing findings that linked the death of bats to higher human infant mortality rates. In U.S. counties where bat populations decreased due to a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome, farmers increased their use of pesticides to compensate for the insect population control that bats typically provide, and putting more pesticide into the environment led to increased infant deaths. Write a short story that demonstrates the unfolding of a chain reaction that occurs when the population of one animal in our interconnected ecosystem either significantly increases or decreases the human population. You might experiment with incorporating elements of certain genres, like science fiction, mystery, romance, or even comedy into your story.

“The jacket doesn’t have many wears left. Its small fissures have become large ones. Its fading has become even more pronounced. And yet, I am putting it through the rigors of my living,” writes Hanif Abdurraqib, about a 1978 vintage Bruce Springsteen nylon jacket he procured, in a piece published for the Yale Review’s “Objects of Desire” series, in which writers “meditate on an everyday item that haunts them.” This week compose a poem about one such haunting object in your life. Abdurraqib describes being drawn to vintage clothing because it is a way of “extending the life of an item that someone else decided they were finished with” and “a bridge from one existence to another.” Is there a beloved item of yours with a history? Think about how you can play with diction, rhythm, and formatting to express why you hold on to this object.

Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, cream-colored ponies, crisp apple strudels, wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. These are a few, mundane yet specific, favorite things the protagonist from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music sings about as an uplifting way to buoy the characters’ spirits in moments of sorrow and distress. This week write a series of short nonfiction vignettes, each one titled with one of your favorite things. Reflect on how each favorite originated, your memories associated with the items, and how they make you feel.