Can we learn how to avoid conflict by studying the behavior of other animals? A recent New York Times article reported that in the last decade or so, a group of chimpanzees in the forests of Uganda experienced an unprecedented uptick in large-scale violence, prompting scientists to question the origins of this civil warfare and consider whether these types of violent conflicts are a part of human evolution. Compose a personal essay that reflects on your thoughts about conflict, whether it be a large-scale conflict in the country you live in or more intimate between friends and family. How can sorting through your own beliefs and emotions help you reach new understandings about human social relations and behavior?

Early last year, a group of three thousand people across the United States were surveyed for a study published by Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute which found that nearly one out of five adults had chatted with an AI romantic partner. Considering this growing trend, write a short story that revolves around the unexpected consequences that arise when a character develops a romantic relationship with an AI-generated companion. Is there an inciting incident that prompts your character to turn to technology for comfort? Does anyone else know about this new love interest or is the relationship kept a secret? Aside from possible elements of sci-fi dystopia or tropes from mystery and thriller genres, consider incorporating some unexpected humor and satire into your story.

“I love the hour before takeoff, / that stretch of no time, no home / but the gray vinyl seats linked like / unfolding paper dolls,” begins Rita Dove’s poem “Vacation,” which appears in her 2021 collection, Playlist for the Apocalypse. The poem follows the speaker’s thoughts and observations of others in the airport waiting at the flight gate, from the “ragtag nuclear families” to “the heeled bachelorette” to “the lone executive.” Taking inspiration from Dove’s poem, write a poem that takes place in an airport, infusing the piece with the dynamic energy of different people on the move, traveling and waiting, perhaps impatiently with nervous energy or exhaustion. How might the sounds and textures of the airport play a role in how the poem conveys the atmosphere?

In the author’s note to his debut novel, The Copywriter, published by Scribner in February, poet and copywriter Daniel Poppick lists the types of writing that can be found in the work, a compilation of observations, questions, stories, lyrics, lists, fragments, and other forms that together constitute a portrait of contemporary life, language, and ideas, from the perspective of a poet sharing his notebook. “What follows is a work of fiction. But if it makes nothing happen, call it poetry,” writes Poppick. Spend a week keeping a journal or notebook of your own. Jot down bits and pieces of overheard, seen, or invented language as it occurs, allowing yourself the freedom to simply record without worrying too much about context or explication. Then comb through your notes and group your favorite snippets into a more coherent narrative, using recurrent themes or images to paint a portrait of your own life at this moment.

In Sarah Wang’s debut novel, New Skin (Little, Brown, 2026), a young woman named Linli Feng is drawn back to her hometown to tend to her mother in the aftermath of her latest string of disastrous plastic surgeries. Through the eyes of Linli, the environment around her reflects components of her own reality, full of signs of destruction and disrepair, including grass that is “as brown and dry as any in Los Angeles,” a fruitless fig tree that has been damaged after her mother backs her car into it, and a thicket of bougainvillea with “deep magenta bracts” dying and falling to her feet. Write a short story in which the setting displays characteristics that reveal both the mindset of your main character and themes you wish to interrogate in your narrative. How might elements that may conventionally be seen as positive or beautiful take on hints of menace or darkness through the story’s landscape?

“Zipping your skirt, you rustle past, / sand hissing through a glass, / with the bedouin snap and flash / of static-electric / sparks disturbing fabric.” In “Static,” which appears in Bright Thorn: Poems 2000–2026 by Devin Johnston, forthcoming in May from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, sound is a significant component of how meaning is expressed. The poet carefully observes a subject’s actions, capturing the ways in which a single movement or gesture can communicate a vast complexity of sentiment. From the tactility of fabric and the sibilant sounds and motions of “zipping” a skirt to the “sparks” of consonance, an intimate tone is set. Write a poem that employs a variety of sounds to convey the complex feelings within a resonant image or moment. How does the variance in sound and actions create a sense of productive tension?

In “Catfishing in Academe,” part of Lucy Ives’s Negative Utopia series published in the Believer, the author writes about her experience with a student’s AI-fabricated writing assignment in an introductory creative writing course. Ives considers the ways language models “threaten worlds” in the ways they “shave language of its messy connections to community, culture, history, poetry, and living bodies.” Spend some time jotting down notes about your favorite words, phrases, slang, or types of language you use with different people in your life. Then write a personal essay that explores how your own, idiosyncratic use of language has “messy connections” to community, culture, and history. How has your use of language evolved to reflect its particular associations with your own living body and those of others around you?

Stories that revolve around a love triangle often presume the presence of would-be binaries: a hero and a villain, the righteous and the evil, the good and the bad. But what happens when the roles are blurred and no one is out to hurt the other? In Ida Lupino’s 1953 drama The Bigamist and the recent dark comedy television series DTF St. Louis, the focus is on the humanity of all three characters within their marriages and the ambiguity of their actions. Taking a cue from the sympathetic nature of these characters, write a short story that involves a love triangle that is similarly even-keeled. How can you experiment with point of view, humor, or dramatic circumstances to create a narrative in which all members of the triangle are imbued with equally powerful traits of complexity and pathos?

In an essay recently published in the Evergreen Review, Eric Dean Wilson writes about discovering the playful use of metaphors in Robert Glück’s 1985 debut novel, Jack the Modernist. While considering what makes one work, Wilson recalls another writer teaching him about metaphor with a metaphor. “A metaphor, the writer said, is like a spark plug,” he says. “At just the right distance, the electrodes cause a spark to arc across the open air, igniting an explosion. The distance between the electrodes matters.” This week compose a poem that cycles through the process of creating an effective metaphor. You might start with the words, “A metaphor is like….” Allow yourself the freedom to play with language that might feel too convoluted as you gradually move toward the right combination to ignite a spark.

“I’ve always thought that art should ultimately be personal,” said artist Melvin Edwards in a 2017 interview published in Frieze magazine. “It may be validating for other people to find that your work reminds them of something else, but it’s much more important for me to keep myself alive creatively, to have the point of departure for whatever I develop be personal.” The first Black sculptor to have a solo art exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York with his provocative, abstract steel forms, Edwards died at the age of eighty-eight on March 30, 2026. This week, think about how you can create an abstract piece of writing. How can writing about something personal develop into expressing a theme, or multiple themes, about the world, whether societal or political? In what ways do inspiration and creative vigor begin with a personal point of departure?