Argentine French author Copi introduces himself as the recipient and translator of a series of letters from a Parisian rat named Gouri to his former “master” in the 1979 novel City of Rats, translated from the French by Kit Schluter in a new edition forthcoming in March from New Directions. In the faux “Translator’s Preface,” Copi writes, “Decryption is not always a simple matter, although I think I’ve managed to the best of my ability here, even if certain passages penned in the rats’ language (two or three entire paragraphs of nothing but the letter ‘i,’ for example) fell away under my ruthless scissors.” Throughout the zany, fabulist narrative that is both whimsical and sexually obscene, the rat embarks on a reckless journey of adventure and crime. Write a short story in which you pose as the recipient of letters from a nonhuman character. As you select your character, consider the thematic possibilities that can be plumbed and how you might explore elements of conventional fables.

Susan Stewart’s seventh poetry collection, Bramble, forthcoming in April from the University of Chicago Press, traverses a wide range of poetic forms and subjects—including progressions throughout nature, illness and grief, and Biblical allusions—striking tones that are elegiac, invocatory, conversational, and observational at various points. The collection’s title might be one way to connect interpretations of the pieces through their depictions of entanglement and struggle, the presence of thorny destruction, but also of protection and blossoming. Taking inspiration from Stewart’s Bramble, write a series of poems that uses the structure of a poetic form to reflect on a complicated aspect of your own life, whether related to family, romance, spirituality, your job, or your creative practice. Where in other works of literature has your metaphorical subject been used, and how has it functioned?

In her foreword to a reissue of Audre Lorde’s 1982 book, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, forthcoming this month from Penguin Classics, Evie Shockley writes about Lorde’s version of writing about the self, in which mythologizing becomes a method to explain the inexplicable. Shockley writes: “What biomythography foregrounds is the way myth is central to her writing of her life, her writing for her life, her writing life, her life writing. A myth is a story that explains the nature or origins of a phenomenon—a story that often involves the supernatural.” Write a personal essay that takes inspiration from Lorde’s form and offers context to a particular event from your past by drawing from the lives and stories of people you have known, both in real life and from works of art. Does a supernatural tone arise from this incorporation of mythology to imbue your narrative with a sense of wonder?

On again and off again, breaking up and making up, will they or won’t they—romances are oftentimes full of ups and downs. Write a short story that revolves around a phase of fluctuations in a romantic relationship between two characters. You might choose to have the events of the narrative unfold in just the span of a day or two, or, if the story takes place over the course of months or years, you could spotlight vignettes of intense emotion when the characters are splitting up or getting back together. Whose point of view works most effectively for the tale you wish to tell? Are there elements of comedy, tragedy, horror, or suspense?