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Prompt to Page with Amelia Zachry

A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.

Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. 

Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.

Listen to Episode 41

Amelia Zachry, author of Enough: A Memoir of Mistakes, Mania, and Motherhood, didn't think anyone would want to read about her trauma. But being vulnerable about her experiences "invited people to be vulnerable" in return.  

"And so that is the power of the word from page to the reader," Amelia says, "that we can transform that sense of healing to others through our words."  

On this episode, Amelia discusses several writing prompts that will help you tap into your emotions and "share your truth." Listen below!

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Rad Reads

Books & Bites Podcast, Ep. 98

JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.

This month we're getting nostalgic with books set in the 1990s, one of the prompts in the Winter-Spring Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge.

Teenagers all figure prominently in our picks: a YA mystery, a thriller that celebrates horror's babysitter trope, and a novel where two teens accidentally start a moral panic.

Don't miss this episode—it's the bomb!

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Prompt to Page with Jessica Handler

A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.

Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. 

Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.

Listen to Episode 40

Author Jessica Handler believes "that when we write well, we're writing about what matters to us."

What matters to you? On this episode, Jessica shares a prompt that will help you understand what you're trying to do with your writing. It's one that she often used while writing her memoir, Invisible Sisters.

Jessica also shares a prompt that will help you regain focus and use your senses in a work in progress. Her third prompt will help you generate ideas for future projects. Listen below!

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Get Cozy with Wintry Reads

Books & Bites Podcast, Ep. 97

JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.

Start the new year with the Winter-Spring Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge! We hope our prompts will inspire you to read and have fun while doing it.

Up first, we share wintry books perfect for reading by the fire. Our picks include an Irish Christmas story, a horror novel set in a Pennsylvania orphanage, and a YA fairy tale.

Enjoy a hot beverage while you read and you can cross two squares off your bingo card. Listen below!

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Prompt to Page with B. Elizabeth Beck

A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.

Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. 

Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.

Listen to Episode 39

For poet and fiction writer B. Elizabeth Beck, "making sure that you are actively engaged in a community is... the salvation to your sanity and to your work."

On this episode, Elizabeth discusses her participation in writing and music communities. She founded Teen Howl and Poetry at the/ˈtā-bəl/, two Lexington-based reading series where poets of all ages support each other's writing.

Elizabeth has also discovered community with fellow fans of the Grateful Dead and Phish, and these experiences, as well as her love of visual art, often inspire her writing.

Learn how to engage with art and music in your own writing with help from Elizabeth's favorite prompt.

more: Prompt to Page with B. Elizabeth Beck

Wrap Up 2024 with These Books

Books & Bites Podcast, Ep. 96

JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.

It's time to wrap up the Summer-Fall Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge! We hope you enjoyed this challenge as much as we did.

Don't forget to turn in your bingo cards by December 30 for a chance to win a Kindle or a $100 gift card to Joseph Beth Booksellers.

On this episode, we discuss books published in 2024. Our picks include a suspense novel that is also an immersive alternate reality game, a National Book Award-winning adaptation of an American classic, and a YA mystery by a bestselling author.

more: Wrap Up 2024 with These Books

Prompt to Page with Jacinda Townsend

A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing.

Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. 

Brought to you in partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.

Listen to Episode 38

Novelist Jacinda Townsend believes that "writing is a habit, and the imagination begets the imagination." Having a set writing routine helps her create because "the imagination is a kind of muscle."

On this episode, Jacinda explains the steps she takes each morning to fire up her imagination, including using writing prompts.

Her favorite prompt to share focuses on pacing. Her students generate such strong work with this exercise that some have even published their finished pieces.

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Books about Chosen Family

Books & Bites Podcast, Ep. 95

JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.

On this episode, we discuss books about chosen or found family, one of the prompts on the Summer-Fall Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge (PDF, 461 KB).

According to library database NoveList, books with this theme focus on families "formed by choice, rather than birth." Close friends, nontraditional families, and people who bond over their circumstances can all form chosen families.

Our picks include a YA novel about a found family of unhoused teens trying to save the world; an alternative history about a ragtag crew working to rid the Mississippi River of its feral hippo problem; and a historical novel about a chosen family in post-World War II England and Italy.

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