In a Q&A with Neil Gaiman by Michele Filgate from the July/August 2013 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, the prolific author reflects on his novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane (William Morrow, 2013), which is written from the point of view of a seven-year-old boy. In his responses, Gaiman considers children’s unique perspective on life and how “kids really do know things that would terrify adults. I think it’s only a certain amount of amnesia that allows adults to function.” This week write a story with a child protagonist who has seen something life-changing. How do they cope, what are their private thoughts, and what are they willing to disclose to the adults around them?

Today marks this year’s Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and the date that officially signifies the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It has been documented that the day was observed as early as the Stone Age, and cultures around the world continue to celebrate the occasion through feasts, festivals, and music. Write a poem inspired by the longest day and shortest night of the year. For further inspiration, peruse this list of poems on the Summer Solstice from the Academy of American Poets’ website.

In “Blood: Twenty-Seven Love Stories,” which appears in The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays, forthcoming in July from Doubleday, CJ Hauser writes: “I want to learn from what went wrong in the past but sometimes it seems everything worth knowing has been redacted. As if ignorance is the only thing that allows each successive generation to tumble into love, however briefly, and spawn the next.” Hauser weaves together twenty-seven short sections that each tell the love stories, some sweet and others disquieting, of her parents and grandparents, as well as those of the author’s own life. The gripping narrative touches upon the themes of love, loss, fate, and sisterhood, as Hauser finds patterns in the way life’s love stories coincide with and contradict one another. Write an essay in sections connected by shared themes. Try, as Hauser does, to link distinct stories into a single narrative, tying the pieces together using common threads.