The Time Is Now

In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Tooth,” a woman’s bus ride to the dentist dissolves into a haze of pain, exhaustion, and an uncanny encounter with a stranger. Write about an ordinary trip on a bus, train, or rideshare that is unsettled by your character’s physical state, whether they’re experiencing hunger, sleeplessness, or an illness. Let the journey shift gradually into unease, or perhaps, an altered sense of connection with others. Focus on moments where tension arises from vulnerability and misconnection, and consider how travel reshapes your character’s sense of self and destination.

Write a poem that begins with the image of an animal arriving where it should not be, such as a whale in an office space or a Zebra in a suburban backyard. Allow this surreal scene to take you to unexpected places and metaphors. Is the animal an omen or is it concealing a secret? Focus on the literal and symbolic dimensions of the encounter, drawing out the scene to illuminate overlooked truths, inner stirrings, and the quiet absurdities of the world around you.

What’s the story behind the story? Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, the new biopic directed by Scott Cooper, relays a behind-the-music creation story of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 acoustic album Nebraska, which was composed and recorded in a New Jersey bedroom. The album represents the singer’s desire for pure art that is free of the constraints and adornments of being a superstar in the music industry. Think about the story behind one of your own stories, perhaps a personal essay you wrote years ago that sprang from a sense of urgency. Write an essay that recounts the story behind this story describing in detail the emotions that played throughout the creative act, where you worked on it, and how the subject matter dictated the process of its writing.

“The dry, undramatic accent of the Midwest had her longing for the slow, thick drip of Southern speech,” writes Brian Gresko in “Singing the Sublime: A Profile of Donika Kelly,” published in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, about how Kelly “leans into the soundscape of her youth, bringing her family forward as characters and voices within her poems” in her new collection, The Natural Order of Things (Graywolf Press, 2025). Taking inspiration from Kelly’s journey back to her youth, think about the voices and language of a time or place from your past that you long to hear again. Write a short story that incorporates these voices—the diction, syntax, cadence, and grammar—into the world of your narrative. Where does your character encounter this soundscape? Is it spoken by a stranger in passing or by someone who becomes an important part of the plot?

In “Man Ray: When Objects Dream,” a new survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among the many works on display are over fifty of the artist’s “rayographs,” photograms made in the early twentieth century by placing objects on or near light-sensitive photo paper that is then exposed to create dramatically silhouetted images with high contrast. In these works, everyday objects—a comb, bottle, lightbulb, eggbeater, key, and wrench—become defamiliarized through Man Ray’s manipulation of placement and movement, capturing what poet Tristan Tzara described as the moment “when objects dream.” Browse through some of the rayographs and select one image that particularly resonates with you. Compose a poem that imagines the dreams in your chosen image. In your deciphering of the objects, ask yourself what do they dream?

Is hate ever the answer? In her new book, Hate: The Uses of a Powerful Emotion (Verso Books, 2025), translated from the German by Jackie de Pont, journalist and author Seyda Kurt reimagines hatred and proposes the use of something she calls “strategic hate” that can be deployed to fight against systems of oppression for a more just and equitable society. This week consider your own relationship to hatred—whether as a fleeting emotion or a simmering state of mind—and write a two-part personal essay. In the first section, describe a time in your life, or a specific situation, in which you felt hatred or a desire for vengeance. Then, write about your perspective on the possibility of channeling that hatred into a more positive direction. How can this corrosive emotion be pointed toward the purposes of more tenderness and care?

Justine Triet’s 2023 drama film Anatomy of a Fall chronicles the aftermath of a mysterious death as the protagonist’s husband falls from the window of their Alpine chalet’s attic. Their eleven-year-old visually impaired son finds his father dead from the fall. Amid questions of the possibility of an accident or a suicide attempt, the protagonist is indicted on charges of homicide and a trial follows. Throughout the film, it is never made clear what exactly happened. Instead, the narrative meditates on themes of biases inherent in individual subjectivity. “Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost,” says the main character. Write a story that revolves around the chaos caused by the unknowability of a dramatic situation. Perhaps it’s a classic case of he-said-she-said or an incident with no direct witnesses and only bits and pieces overseen or overheard. How do your characters deal with the fallout of never knowing what truly transpired?

What ever happened to opening a bar tab? A New York Times article from earlier this year reported on a trend of Gen Z bargoers opting to pay for each drink separately instead of opening a tab even if they’re ordering multiple drinks throughout the night, a phenomenon that can result in higher credit card fees paid by the bar, wasted time on a busy night of cocktail concocting, and a diminished sense of camaraderie when friends each pay for a drink separately instead of taking turns buying rounds. Write a personal essay that examines a social behavior that has dissolved over the years and reflect on the wider ripple effects. Consider how you’ve participated in or avoided certain types of etiquette and why you may have followed the trend in the past.

A human skull, eleven boxes full of used corks, a reel of an old cycling race, an eighteenth-century textbook—these are some of the real items discovered in attics from an article published in the Guardian. What’s hidden in your home? Write a short story that revolves around a character who has just moved into a new place, or is exploring a previously unexamined part of their home, and makes a startling discovery in an attic, basement, shed, or crawl space. Does your character attempt to formulate a story around the findings or locate the original owners of the home? Is there a creative, monetary, or emotional value to be found in the object?