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Category Archives: Writing prompt
Things I’ve Done for Money
By Amy Boyd There’s a group of people who may know more about you than you think–dry cleaners. After working all of six hours at a local doughnut shop one Saturday in the spring of 1996, I was told that … Continue reading
Posted in Guest writer, Writing prompt
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Oops, An Embarrassing Moment
” Oops, An Embarrassing Moment” is a writing prompt I have given my writers from time to time. It’s brought in a range of stories from the modestly funny, toilet-paper-stuck-to-your-shoe variety to the truly heart-stopping. (More coming about that in … Continue reading
Letting Go
By Sheila Spear I let go of the Land of My Birth [England] with nary a backward glance, despite years of school assemblies at which I pledged it “my life and toil in the years to be.” I was off … Continue reading
Posted in Guest writer, Writing prompt
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David Brooks: “The Life Reports”
Have you been following op-ed columnist David Brooks’ columns on “The Life Reports”? In an October 2011 New York Times column, he asked readers over 70 to send him Life Reports evaluating their lives–brief essays on “how they had done and … Continue reading
Posted in Book review, Writing prompt
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A Key Life Writing Tool: Your Timeline
Every time I work with newcomers to life writing, I bring up the subject of timelines in one form or another. Today I bring news of a new online tool for creating timelines. In my classes I might discuss the … Continue reading
Getting and Spending in Carmel Indiana, 1960s
This was written in response to the writing prompt, “The role of money in your life.” I have always had a sense of myself as an earner, a participant in the economy, not just a consumer. I was born to … Continue reading
These Hands
By Jillian Hussey I have always liked my hands, even now as the hands of a 73-year-old woman. As I look at the wrinkled, thin skin, and the bulging veins, my mind carries me back over the years in contemplation … Continue reading
Writing Prompt suggestion: Letting Go
Readers of this blog know I’m not a huge fan of writing prompts. In fact, I’m pretty conflicted about their usefulness for memoir writers. As I said in a post last spring (!%#@*! Writing Prompts) I think they may actually … Continue reading
Posted in Writing prompt
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Being 13 on Martha’s Vineyard
By Sarah White I wrote this in response to the writing prompt, “Who I was at Age _____.” It is August of 1969, I am 13, and I have come to Martha’s Vineyard to babysit my 10-year-old cousin Alice. Alice’s mother Jane … Continue reading
What are you doing with your summer vacation?
It’s hot in Wisconsin this week. Like, record-setting heat and humidity I haven’t seen since my summers in the thermal-inversion bowl of Bloomington, Indiana back in college circa 1976… But I digress. Are you traveling this summer? Write about it! You’re … Continue reading
Posted in Writing prompt, writing workshop
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