Be Inspired / 103 posts found
2022 April PAD Challenge: Day 11
For today’s prompt, write a power poem. Your poem could somehow involve electricity, solar power, fossil fuels, wind, or water. It could illustrate a power play or someone exerting their power over someone else. Of course, you could also write about a power outage. You alone have the power to poem your way through this prompt. Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. Note on commenting: If you wish to comment on the site, go to Disqus to create a free new account, verify your account on this site below (one-time […]
Dolen Perkins-Valdez: On History’s Untold Stories
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench and Balm. She was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the ALA. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dolen Perkins-Valdez Photo by Norman E. Jones In this post, Dolen discusses how a personal curiosity evolved into a fervent need to share in her new historical fiction novel, Take My Hand, her hope for other writers, and more! Name: Dolen Perkins-ValdezLiterary agent: Stephanie Cabot, Susanna Lea AssociatesBook title: Take […]
2022 April PAD Challenge: Day 10
After we get through today’s poem, we’ll be a third of the way finished with this challenge. Keep the poems coming! For today’s prompt, write a taste poem. Back on day three, we wrote a smell poem; let’s write about the sense of taste today. Of course, I’m thinking about tasting wine or cheese or chocolate. But feel free to indulge in a person’s taste in fashion, cars, or whatever else requires real taste. Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. Note on commenting: If you wish to comment on the […]
2022 April PAD Challenge: Day 9
If you want an extra challenge this month, try participating in our current WD Poetic Form Challenge for the kimo. For today’s prompt, write a breaking poem. The poem could be about breaking down walls, break dancing, breaking up, or breaking stuff. However you’d like to break it down and then write your poem. Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. Note on commenting: If you wish to comment on the site, go to Disqus to create a free new account, verify your account on this site below (one-time thing), and […]
6 Books I Wish I Could Read for the First Time Again
You know that feeling when a book is so good you hesitate to finish it? And then when you do finish, you want to start it all over again, but as if it’s the first time? (3 Things I Learned About Writing From Reading L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón) I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. I came to writing from my love of reading. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and so many books inform, inspire, and invigorate my writing. And I think we all have that list of books that impacted us so profoundly, we wish […]
2022 April PAD Challenge: Day 8
And just like that, we’re starting the second week of this challenge. Poem on! For today’s prompt, write a what they never tell you poem. I’m not sure who “they” are, but “they” talk a lot, and there are things people tell you, and there are things you just have to learn on your own, because “they” (them again) never tell you ahead of time. Like, for instance, “they” never told me that I’d still feel like a teenager in my 40s, but here we are. Think about what “they” never tell (or told) you, and write that poem. Remember: […]
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Triggered Memory
Plot twist story prompts aren’t meant for the beginning or the end of stories. Rather, they’re for forcing big and small turns in the anticipated trajectory of a story. This is to make it more interesting for the readers and writers alike. Each week, I’ll provide a new prompt to help twist your story. Find last week’s prompt, Second Life, here. Plot Twist Story Prompts: Triggered Memory For today’s prompt, have a character’s memory get triggered by someone or something. This could be a huge blocked memory or just one of those things the character had forgotten but now it […]
Laila Ibrahim: On Characters Throughout Decades
Laila Ibrahim is the bestselling author of Golden Poppies, Paper Wife, Mustard Seed, and Yellow Crocus. She spent much of her career as a preschool director, a birth doula, and a religious educator. That work, coupled with her education in developmental psychology and attachment theory, provided ample fodder for her novels. She’s a devout Unitarian Universalist, determined to do her part to add a little more love and justice to our beautiful and painful world. She lives with her wonderful wife, Rinda, and two other families in a small co-housing community in Berkeley, California. Her young adult children are her […]
2022 April PAD Challenge: Day 7
So believe it or not, and for better or worse, we’ll be a full week finished with this challenge once we write today’s poem! Are you excited? If so, would you say you have an abundance of excitement? For today’s prompt, write an abundance poem. There can be an abundance of things, both good and bad. An abundance of sunshine, money, and chocolate. Or an abundance of rain, debt, and liverwurst. Today, I hope there will be an abundance of poeming! Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. Note on commenting: […]
Madi Sinha: On Life Inspiring Fiction
Madi Sinha is a physician and the author of The White Coat Diaries. She lives in New Jersey with her family. You can find her at madisinha.com or on Twitter and Instagram. Madi Sinha Photo by Ashley Walsh Photography, 2019 In this post, Madi discusses how working through a pandemic as a medical professional inspired her new novel, At Least You Have Your Health, what she learned along the way, and more! Name: Madi SinhaLiterary agent: Jessica WattersonBook title: At Least You Have Your HealthPublisher: BerkleyRelease date: April 5, 2022Genre/category: General fiction/Women’s fictionPrevious titles: The White Coat DiariesElevator pitch for […]