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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About Jessica Handler
Jessica Handler is the author of the novel The Magnetic Girl, winner of the 2020 Southern Book Prize and a nominee for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, a 2019 “Books All Georgians Should Read,” an Indie Next pick, Wall Street Journal Spring 2019 pick, Bitter Southerner Summer 2019 pick, and a Southern Independent Bookseller’s Association “Okra Pick.”
Her memoir Invisible Sisters was also named one of the “Books All Georgians Should Read,” and her craft guide Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss was praised by Vanity Fair magazine.
Her writing has appeared on NPR, in Tin House, Drunken Boat, Full Grown People, Oldster, The Bitter Southerner, Electric Literature, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Newsweek, The Washington Post and elsewhere.