Before online shopping became a convenient and popular method of purchasing things, one would have to go to a specialty store to find uncommon and rare items. Many of these specialty stores are closing their doors due to rising rent prices and dwindling customers. Is there a specialty store you used to frequent that has since closed up shop? Or do you wish there was a good video store stocked with foreign films, or a record shop with an incredibly knowledgeable staff in your town? Think about the process of going into a store and sifting through their stock until you discover something, versus having Amazon recommend something based on your previous purchases. Is there any difference? Which method do you prefer?

Some people, once they find a place they like, really make themselves at home. This week, write a story about a regular at a local bar, restaurant, or coffee shop. Why has this person latched on to this particular place? Does he or she always order the same thing? How do the other patrons feel about this person? Try to have all the action in the story take place inside the establishment.

In the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, award-winning poet Louise Glück discusses her craft: "For me it's tone—the way the mind moves as it performs its acts of meditation. That's what you're following. It guides you but it also mystifies you because you can't turn it into conscious principles or say precisely what its attributes are....You have to be surprised by what it is capable of unveiling." Focus on tone this week as you write, and see where it takes you. Don't think about facts, about what's real or true, but instead the fleeting impressions, strange daydreams, and disjointed thought patterns that bubble to the surface throughout your day. Let your mood be the filter through which your verses come to light.

Submissions are open for the twenty-seventh annual Oregon Book Awards, sponsored by the Portland-based nonprofit Literary Arts. The annual prizes are given for books by Oregon residents published in the previous year. The winners will receive $1,000 each and will be announced at an awards ceremony in Portland in April.

Awards are given in the following categories: poetry, short fiction, the novel, creative nonfiction, general nonfiction, children’s literature, young adult literature, drama, and readers’ choice. Submit two copies of a book published between August 1, 2013, and July 31, 2014, with the required entry form and $40 entry fee by August 29. Submissions should be mailed to Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington, Portland, OR 97205. Writers who are Oregon residents and who live in Oregon for at least six months of the year are eligible. Self-published books are eligible. The judges for each category will be announced when the finalists are announced in January; all judges are from out of state.

The 2014 winners include poet Mary Szybist for her collection Incarnadine (Graywolf), chosen by Kwame Dawes; fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin for her story collection The Unreal and the Real (Small Beer Press), chosen by Alan Cheuse; nonfiction writer Jay Ponteri for his memoir Wedlocked (Hawthorne Books), chosen by Ander Monson; and fiction writer Amanda Coplin for her novel The Orchardist (Harper Perennial), chosen by readers.

Literary Arts has administered the Oregon Book Awards for twenty-seven years. The organization also offers the Portland Arts & Lectures series, Oregon Fellowships, Writers in the Schools program, and Delve Readers Seminars.

Photo: Ursula K. Le Guin, the 2014 fiction winner. Credit: Motoya Nakamura

Climbing is an exercise that’s both exhilarating and exhausting. This week think of the highest peak you’ve ever climbed. It could have been a ladder to your childhood tree house or Mount Kilimanjaro. Were you climbing for fun, or out of necessity? How did it feel once you reached the top? If you feel you’ve never climbed to any significant height, would you ever want to?

Usually if someone’s in love, they know it. Love is an all-encompassing emotion, often casting a person’s life in a pleasant, rosy glow. But as with most emotions, love can be confusing. This week, write a story in which your character doesn’t realize she is falling in love. Do her friends notice the development and try and make her see what’s happening? Does she remain completely oblivious, or does she adamantly deny any affection towards her love interest? Is she even aware of her love interests’ feelings towards her? Consider the fine line between close friendship and romantic love, and how difficult it is to tell whether that line has been crossed.

This week focus on sound. Not just the background noise of your day-to-day routine, like the ticking of the clock or the drone of the air conditioner, but the sound of the words you hear people speak. Notice the word choice of the news anchors on television, the radio talk show hosts, and the people at your workplace. Deconstruct the common phrases you hear, like “Have a nice day.” When you say this, consider the way your mouth moves to create the shape of the words. Notice the cadence, rhythm, and inflection of your voice. Write a poem to be read aloud—speak it first, then put it on paper.

Submissions are open for the inaugural Gulf Coast Translation Prize. An award of $1,000 and publication in the April 2015 issue of Gulf Coast will be given for a poem or group of poems translated into English. Translator and poet Jen Hofer will judge.

Submit up to five pages of poetry translated into English with the original text with a $17 entry fee by August 31. Preference will be given to translations of work published within the last fifty years. Translators may submit using the online submission system, or by postal mail to Gulf Coast, English Department, University of Houston, Houston, TX  77204. All entries will be considered for publication; two honorable mentions will also be published in the April 2015 issue of Gulf Coast.

Judge Jen Hofer is a poet, translator, educator, bookmaker, and social justice interpreter. She has published three poetry collections, several handmade chapbooks, and four translations of poetry by Mexican women. Her most recent translation, Ivory Black (Les Figues Press, 2011)—a translation from the Spanish of Mexican poet Myriam Moscona’s collection Negro Marfil—won both the 2012 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets and the 2012 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Hofer also cofounded the language justice and language experimentation collaborative Antena with John Pluecker.

Gulf Coast is the student-run literature and arts journal of the University of Houston. Established in 1982 by Donald Barthelme and Phillip Lopate, the biannual journal was originally named Domestic Crude. The journal also offers annual prizes in poetry, short fiction, short short fiction, and creative nonfiction.

News and social media channels are buzzing about the recent outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. This week, write a story in which one of your characters is a doctor responsible for treating patients that have contracted a highly contagious virus. Think about how she handles the risks involved, and what emotions she’ll struggle with. Maybe there is a lack of proper medical equipment or limited space in hospitals and treatment facilities. Is there information on this virus, or is it something doctors have never seen before?

This week, think about what you need to hear and write a letter to yourself. In it, try and touch on all the things you feel have been tripping you up recently—all the things that have been bothering you or getting in your way, all the things that you need to remind yourself of more often, and all the things that you wish people told you on a regular basis. Go ahead: Give yourself some love and celebrate the goodness you bring into the world.