Between These Shores Books
Diving For Pearls
Online writers' resources by Ingrid Bruck
Ingrid Bruck is an editor at Between These Shores. She was a featured writer in BTSA Issue #2. Her column is devoted to online writer resources. She found her own writer support community online. Writing this column is one way of "paying it forward".
Diving for Pearls: Online Writers Resources
BTS Books strives to be a writers resource. Toward that end, we invite writers to share their information, link, and news of interest for the literary community.
Email your pearls of resources for writers to:
Ingrid Bruck, Network and Resource Editor
June 2021
Good Writing Prompts
Creatives have spent the last year in lockdown during Covid, along with the rest of the world. Writer conferences, literary festivals, open mics, slams, writer workshops, author new book launches —- they never stopped happening, though the format shifted to virtual. Zoom changed the literary landscape in the past year.
Writers and artistic creatives might not have appeared in person on stage, but they didn’t stop writing— they produced at home. What changed was how they marketed their goods.
One result of author-performers working at home alone has been an increase in the availability of new writing prompts online. Just one year ago, I couldn’t have imagined the current wealth of writer prompts.
The writer prompts I discovered cross literary genres. This month’s column of Pearl Diving features a few of the writer prompt riches that I uncovered on the web.
1- For breadth, depth and sheer volume of writing prompts, see Kelly Tsai’s 171 Writer Prompts for You to Use. This list appeared on Trisch Hopkinson’s Selfish Poet Blog that featured guest Blogger, Kelly Tsai. Tsai’s accompanying article explains how she developed 171 writer prompts and takes the reader back through the year of isolation we are just now escaping, thanks to the development of a Covid vaccine. Tsai’s prompts are stellar. See: CreativeQuarantine: Life Learned in Isolation (Plus 171 Prompts For You to Use) – guest post by Kelly Tsai on Trisch Hopkinson’s Selfish Poet Blog, April 12, 2021. https://trishhopkinson.com/2021/04/12/creativequarantine-life-learned-in-isolation-plus-171-prompts-for-you-to-use-guest-post-by-kelly-tsai/
2- If you write nonfiction, you’ll enjoy Brevity’s Prompts for Teaching The Flash Essay. This list of prompts appears on Dinty W. Moore’s Nonfiction Blog. I call your attention in particular to Expanded Classroom Resources: Prompts for Teaching The Flash Essay. In the area of flash nonfiction, the prompts were culled over twenty-two year from the best of Brevity authors. The flash essay prompts is part of Brevity’s larger suite of classroom resources. Be sure to check out the full menu of Classroom Resources.
Here are links to writing prompts for The Flash Essay:
Expanded Classroom Resources: Prompts for Teaching The Flash Essay by Dinty W. Moore at BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog, May 20, 2021. https://brevity.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/prompts-for-the-flash-essay/
Prompts for Teaching the Flash Essay.
I acknowledge Finds for Writers - Erika Dreifus May 21, 2021 at 7:45 am for directing me to Brevity’s nonfiction prompts.
3- For writers of romance, there’s 50 Romance Plot Ideas and Romance Writing Prompts, from Bryn Donovan’s Blog: tell your stories, love your life. Link: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2015/07/10/master-list-of-romantic-conflicts/
4- For poets, you’ll enjoy 11 Exercises and Activities for Creating Unexpected Imagery in Poetry. This list of prompts was delivered in an online lecture, The Art of Fresh Imagery in Poetry, presented By Meghan Sterling. The full lecture is available for free viewing from Authors Publish. To obtain the writing prompts, download the Exercise Packet attached to the video.
https://authorspublish.com/free-lecture-the-art-of-fresh-imagery-in-poetry/ Meghan Sterling
Best wishes for a happy summer season of reading and writing!
