In C. K. Williams’s poem “Marina,” published in the New Yorker in 2005, the speaker is reading essays by Marina Tsvetaeva as a bug makes its way across the table. As the poem progresses, lines from Tsvetaeva’s essays are interlaced with descriptions of the bug dragging its transparent wings behind it, and the bug becomes a metaphor for her difficult life. “‘The soul is our capacity for pain.’ // When I breathe across it, / the bug squats, quakes, finally flies. / And couldn’t she have flown again, / again have been flown?” Write a poem involving lines from a writer you admire. Try, as Williams does, to elucidate or challenge the featured lines.

The deadline is approaching for the nineteenth annual Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, given for a book-length manuscript by a poet living in Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., or West Virginia. Perfect for beer lovers, the award includes $500, publication by Broadkill River Press, 10 author copies, and two cases of Dogfish Head craft beer. The winner is expected to attend a reading and awards ceremony at the Dogfish Inn in Lewes, Delaware, on December 11. Lodging for a two-night stay at the inn is provided, but travel expenses are not included.

Submit a manuscript of 48 to 78 pages to [email protected] by August 15. Only writers over the age of 21 are eligible. Hayden Saunier will judge. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

The most recent recipient of the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize was Susan Rothbard, whose winning manuscript, Birds of New Jersey, was praised by Edgar Kunz, the final judge, as a “sometimes shocking, often bemused, and always insightful collection.”

“I had been thinking about this story for probably seven years before I drafted it,” says Sterling HolyWhiteMountain in an interview for Guernica’s Back Draft series about writing his short story “Featherweight,” which was recently published in the New Yorker. HolyWhiteMountain offers a glimpse into the first draft of the story’s opening paragraph and the final draft, and discusses his revision process for his story revolving around the breakup of a relationship. Write an essay that uses revision as a theme. Perhaps you might revise a family story you’ve been told, or consider different points of view of a memorable event. What will you leave out, and what will you add?

In an interview for the Creative Independent, Jackie Ess discusses how an Instagram account with nature photos started by her partner inspired the titular character of her debut novel, Darryl (Clash Books, 2021). “I started a Twitter account for Darryl,” she says. “I would do these little monologues as Darryl, and I think you see that the chapters are a little bit like Twitter threads.” This week, write a story with a protagonist inspired by a social media presence. Whether it be an influencer or somebody’s dad, how will their virtual mask fold into the conflict of the story?