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!

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 37

Novelist Robert Gipe believes that when you use writing prompts, "you're just kind of fishing for something that works."

If you're lucky, you might end up with "a couple of sentences that have some energy to them, that have some heat." Robert says those sentences can help you build a piece of writing "you feel good enough about to share with others."

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 36

When creative writer Deidra White feels stuck with her writing, she tells herself to "write the poem that you need to read." This exercise helps with one of the most challenging aspects of writing: visualizing your audience.

Deidra shares several other ways she likes to jump start her writing. She also describes how she rediscovered her passion for words as a nontraditional college student, why she enjoys teaching young people, and more. Listen below!

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 35

Are you an aspiring writer who thinks you'll write a novel when you have more time or your children are older? If so, author and Kentucky Poet Laureate Silas House has some advice for you.

"Often you cannot create the perfect conditions for your writing," he says. "I think if you wait around for that, you're never going to get anything written." Silas knows this from experience, having written his first three novels when his children were small. "Sometimes you just have to do it," he continues.

Silas shares a multi-step writing prompt that will help you create vivid characters, whether you're working on fiction, poetry, or memoir. It's the perfect opportunity to stop waiting and start writing.

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 33

Sandra Gail Lambert, author of My Withered Legs and Other Essays, started writing in her forties. She believes her age helped her cope with the "rough and tumble world" of publishing.

"There's so much rejection [in publishing], and there's so much feedback that is not necessarily accurate or kind," Sandra says. "And when we're older, we just have tougher skin."