“Where are you from / is a question I field too much. Once / I said Vietnam and the white man said I fought there. / I loved the country. I love their people. / That’s the day I started to lie / about my birth,” writes Kien Lam in his poem “Lunar Mansions,” published in the May/June 2018 issue of the American Poetry Review, in which he recounts the apocryphal story of his birth. Lam weaves in the story of the birth of Jesus, often conflating it with his own: “In the stable / the horses kicked me from their wombs,” he writes. Write a poem that tells the apocryphal story of your birth incorporating, as Lam does, a fantastical tone.
Writing Prompts & Exercises
The Time Is Now
The Time Is Now offers three new and original writing prompts each week to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. We also curate a list of essential books on writing—both the newly published and the classics—that we recommend for guidance and inspiration. Whether you’re struggling with writer’s block, looking for a fresh topic, or just starting to write, our archive of writing prompts has what you need. Need a starter pack? Check out our Writing Prompts for Beginners.
Tuesdays: Poetry prompts
Wednesdays: Fiction prompts
Thursdays: Creative nonfiction prompts
Get immediate access to more than 2,000 writing prompts with the tool below:
“How to choose // persimmons. This is precision. / Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted. / Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one / will be fragrant. How to eat: / put the knife away, lay down newspaper. / Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat,” writes Li-Young Lee in his evocative poem “Persimmons,” in which he uses the autumnal fruit as a way to speak on a number of personal subjects, such as his memories of a sixth grade teacher, his relationship with his wife, and his father’s blindness. Inspired by Lee’s poem, write a lyric essay about a favorite fruit that conjures sensorial memories. Let yourself be surprised by the direction of your associations.
Over the weekend, many of us, perhaps reluctantly, turned our clocks back an hour, ending Daylight Saving Time for the year. Dating back to World War I when countries needed a way to preserve power and fuel, the yearly change begins in the spring with clocks being pushed forward an hour to conserve daylight leading to longer days and shorter nights, then in the fall pushed back for longer nights and shorter days. Write a story that takes place during the end of Daylight Saving Time. How does the lengthening of darkness affect the mindset of your character?
“I think one of the civic responsibilities of poets in America today is to continue to encourage a sense of civility among us and a sense of curiosity about one another’s lives,” says Naomi Shihab Nye in a conversation with Juan Felipe Herrera and Jane Hirshfield at the 2015 National Book Festival captured on video by the Academy of American Poets. What do you feel is one of your responsibilities as a writer? Write a poem that answers this question by considering timely issues—whether global or personal—that fuel your passion for writing.
The Day of the Dead holiday is traditionally celebrated on the first two days of November, a time for families to remember and honor their dearly departed. The festivities have increasingly become more global but date back to the eleventh century and hold great significance for Mexico’s Indigenous communities. Public places and homes are filled with altars and offerings to commemorate loved ones with their favorite things, including traditional dishes and treats as well as elaborate decorations. Inspired by the celebratory spirit of the Day of the Dead, write an essay that explores how you remember your ancestors. Does this holiday reframe your understanding of grief and loss?
In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, autumn means catching the colorful, vibrant, and fleeting fall foliage, prompting many to take in the majestic display. Resources like the Smoky Mountain National Park’s Fall Foliage Prediction Map can help travelers locate areas in the United States where leaves are starting to change color, are at their peak, or past peak. Using this map as research, write a story in which your protagonist ventures out to a region where the leaves have changed their color. How does this bright, dramatic scenery affect your character’s mood and choices?
In his poem “Magritte Dancing,” Gerald Stern captures the frustration of struggling to fall asleep while paying close attention to the rhythms of his body and passing thoughts. Stern builds the scene by beginning with the mundane: “Every night I have to go to bed twice, / once by myself, suddenly tired and angry.” Then he turns to the passionate intensity of memory and the surreal: “I look at the morning with relief, with something close / to pleasure that I still have one more day, / and I dance the dance of brotherliness and courtliness.” Inspired by the award-winning poet, who died last Thursday at the age of ninety-seven, write a poem about falling asleep. Try to combine reality with the surreal as you toe the line between waking and dreaming.
“Once you know what a book contains, why read it again? Because literature is not information. It’s an atmosphere, a location, a space, a landscape you can enter, with its own weather and light that can be found nowhere else,” writes Sofia Samatar in a recent installment of our Craft Capsules series. Samatar argues for rereading favorite books and discovering in the experience why readers continue to return. She writes: “Every piece of writing calls a particular world into being, an environment through which a reader moves.” Pick a favorite text, whether a single essay or a whole book, and take notes on your feelings as you reread it. Then write an essay using these notes that reflects on this experience of rediscovery.
Over the past few weeks, some climate activists have taken up controversial methods of protest by pelting iconic paintings, such as Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and Claude Monet’s “Haystacks,” with mashed potatoes and tomato soup. The protests were recorded and posted on social media by activists in Germany and the United Kingdom to help draw attention to concerns of the ongoing climate catastrophe and its effects on future generations. This week, write a story from the perspective of someone who plans and performs a public protest inside a museum. What work of art helps represent their message?
Is it possible to achieve mastery of an art form? In Carl Phillips’s essay “What We Are Carrying: Meditations on a Writing Practice,” excerpted from his book My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations From a Life in Writing (Yale University Press, 2022) and published in the November/December 2022 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, he argues that “the relationship—between two people, between art and maker—is symbiotic and organic, ever changing, on both sides” therefore it is the commitment to writing that outweighs any idea of mastering it. Drawing from various practices such as learning to speak Italian and playing the clarinet, Phillips writes about the importance of “useful mistakes” and how revision reveals the ways in which a poem is a map, “not a way of getting somewhere, but a record of having been lost.” Keeping Phillips’s essay in mind, write a poem with the intention of getting lost in the writing process. Let your imagination guide you toward surprise.
In his essay “How to Pass the Time on a Holiday Commemorating the Destruction of Your Ancestors,” published by Literary Hub in 2015, Indigenous poet Tommy Pico confronts the reality of the history of Thanksgiving and what it means for him: “You’re maybe only a little bit aware of it for a small part of today, in between the family or the baking or the turkey. It might be a twinge. But that twinge is where I live.” In the conclusion of the essay, Pico offers a summary of how he spends the holiday—making pie with his friends, writing poems, and drinking dirty martinis—and provides readers a chance to reflect on what it means to ask how a Native American celebrates Thanksgiving. Inspired by the duality in Pico’s essay, write a personal essay about how the history of Thanksgiving affects the way you experience the holiday today.
The traditional tarot deck can be divided into two sections: the minor and major arcana. The former focuses on quotidian details, while the latter reveals the bigger picture of one’s life. Composed of twenty-two cards, the major arcana tells the story of life’s endless cycles, beginning with the first card of the Fool, symbolizing naivety and new beginnings, and ending with the last card of the World, representing all of life’s major achievements and stages. As we move closer to ushering in a new year, write a short story that begins with the end of one cycle in your character’s life and concludes with the beginning of a new one. What does the journey between these two life stages look like? Explore the inner life of your protagonist as they find their way toward a new path.
In his essay “The Medium of the English Language,” published in Poetry magazine in 2014, the poet and critic James Longenbach, who died in July at the age of sixty-two, wrote about the ways in which the English language was his medium, the way that “the medium of Giorgione’s Tempest is ‘oil on canvas.’” Longenbach wrote: “How can art be something made of words, the same words used for newspapers and parking tickets? Unlike the media most commonly associated with visual and sonic artistry, words are harnessed by most people during almost every waking moment of their lives.” Taking inspiration from Longenbach’s essay, write a poem that reflects on how your everyday language becomes the medium for your poetry. Do you see a link between how you use language to communicate in your daily life and how you use it to communicate in a poem?
The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2022 was awarded to French author Annie Ernaux for what the Nobel Committee calls “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” This skill is exemplified in her book The Years as she tells her life story spanning over sixty years in an unconventional manner, using the choral “we” and sometimes shifting into the third person. Reflecting on the voice of her book, Ernaux writes: “There is no ‘I’ in what she views as a sort of impersonal autobiography. There is only ‘one’ and ‘we,’ as if now it were her time to tell the story of the time-before.” Write an essay in the third person that focuses on a span of time in your life. How does this formal choice affect how you consider writing personally and collectively?
Have you ever tried to tell a story in reverse order? In the latest installment of our Ten Questions series, E. M. Tran discusses the challenges she faced while writing her debut novel, Daughters of the New Year (Hanover Square Press, 2022), which moves backward in time. “I had to shift my mindset,” says Tran. “Tension and narrative movement can still accumulate when you go backward. It just looked different, and I had to really get comfortable with that when I was writing.” This week, write a story that moves backward in time. Start with the ending and guide the reader back to the origins of your character’s journey.
“Each poem or song has a genealogy of sorts. When I speak with singers from our ceremonial ground about a song, they tell you who taught you the song, where the song came from, who has the authority to sing/speak it,” writes former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo in her Blaney Lecture “Ancestors: A Mapping of Indigenous Poetry and Poets” delivered in 2015 at Poets Forum in New York City. “The meanings make a map that sometimes connect you to a lonely serviceman in Japan, or to the journey over the Trail of Tears, from what is now known as Alabama to Indian Territory, or Oklahoma.” Inspired by Harjo’s words, write a poem that traces the genealogy of your poetry. Try starting with a list or a family tree to uncover the storytellers who have inspired you.
Last month, former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey delivered the annual Windham-Campbell lecture “Why I Write” at Yale University. In considering the theme of the lecture, Trethewey recalls the familial, poetic, and cultural influences that inspired her to become a poet, weaving personal stories with reflections on history and literature. “I’ve needed to create the narrative of my life, its abiding metaphors, so that my story would not be determined for me,” says Trethewey. This week, ask yourself why you write and write a personal essay that searches for your response. What is the story you want to tell?
What can we learn from a single conversation? In Richard Bausch’s short story “Aren’t You Happy for Me?” the protagonist Ballinger speaks to his daughter Melanie over the phone. The conversation, which increases in stakes and tension as it progresses, centers around both parties needing to share life-altering news: Melanie is pregnant and planning to marry an older man while Ballinger and his wife are planning to separate. The story is told with very little narration and is almost entirely written in dialogue. This week try writing a story that takes place over the course of a phone call. Consider what is said and unsaid in the dialogue and how this creates tension between your characters.
In Derrick Austin’s poem “Jesus Year,” he creates a portrait of his life on the occasion of his thirty-third birthday. Instead of leaning toward the more familiar images of birthday cakes or candles, Austin begins by describing his immediate surroundings: “My clogged sink coughs up foul water. / My skeletal philodendron,” he writes. The poem then offers more about his life; family members, a cerulean sweater worn through a winter without work, memories of the last time he smoked a cigarette. Taking inspiration from Austin, write a poem that paints a portrait of your life. Try to color the poem with unexpected images to offer a complete picture.
In “Oral History,” an essay published in Astra Magazine online, Yiyun Li recounts when she was invited by her child’s third grade class to share a story of what her life was like in the third grade. Instead of telling the true story of a teacher’s cruel punishment of a fellow student and the betrayal and ostracism she experienced as a result, she fabricates a story about the lantern festival she attended. Li writes: “How else could I have contributed to their education? Had I chosen to tell them a true story, I would have inflicted cruelty, too.” Inspired by Li’s decision, write a personal essay about a time you chose to conceal the truth to protect someone. What were the circumstances behind this decision, and what were you trying to protect them from?
In a recent episode of the science podcast Ologies, host Alie Ward speaks with Cole Imperi, founder of the School of American Thanatology and a leading expert on death, dying, and grief. Ward talks about her experience with her father’s death and asks Imperi about the Kübler-Ross model, also known as the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Imperi discusses the common misconception that these stages are experienced by all in a linear order, and that in fact, many may not experience all the stages and some may switch from one stage to another and return to one again. This week, write a story in which a character grieves over the loss of something or someone. Use the Kübler-Ross model as inspiration to plot out your character’s development.
In Ross Gay’s poem “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian,” neighbors gather around “the canopy / of a fig its / arms pulling the / September sun to it” and relish in the riches of the tree’s bounty, an uncommon occurrence for a typical city street corner. Gay writes, “soon there were / eight or nine / people gathered beneath / the tree looking into / it like a / constellation pointing / do you see it.” This week, inspired by autumn as the season of the harvest, write a poem in which you describe a joyful scene centered around a fruit-bearing plant or tree. How does this experience serve as an escape from the worries of your daily life?
Following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Twitter user @aardvarsk tweeted: “I am tired of being a part of a major historical event.” The tweet gained over 60,000 retweets and 263,000 likes, and like anything popular these days, eventually turned into a meme. The expression, and versions of it, have spread online over the past two years noting the fatigue of many living through this time of multiple pandemics, war, and political and economic instability. Write an essay that reflects on the exhaustion of living through major historical moments. Consider how people a century ago were feeling and what might be said of the 2020s in the future.
In an essay featured in the September/October 2022 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Jonathan Evison writes about the banning of his 2018 novel, Lawn Boy, and the morning he found out that parents were protesting the inclusion of his novel in a Texas high school library. Evison awoke to several threatening messages on his social media accounts which included one that read: “There’s a special place in hell for people like you. I hope you burn.” This week, write a story from the perspective of a writer whose book is banned and targeted by a group of parents and local politicians. In what unexpected way is your protagonist’s life changed by this sudden fame?
In her poem “The Quiet,” which appears in a recent issue of the London Review of Books, Jorie Graham disrupts traditional expectations of a poem by aligning the text to the right of the page. Graham creates an atmosphere of tension by describing a metaphysical storm, and later in the poem, a literal one. She writes: “as wind comes up and we feel our soul turn frantic / in us, craning this way and that, yes the soul can twist, can winch itself into knots, / why not, there is light but no warmth.” This week, write a poem that creates visual tension by aligning the text to the right. Is there a storm in your life that could serve as inspiration?