DAY 8 – Debbie Ridpath Ohi Breaks Crayons

THE PROMPT

Write a story inspired by today’s “You never know what will come out a broken crayon” visual prompt. 

THE AUTHOR

Debbie Ridpath Ohi is a children’s book author and illustrator. Launching from Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers on Aug. 25, 2020 – GURPLE AND PREEN: A BROKEN CRAYON COSMIC ADVENTURE, a new picture book written by Linda Sue Park and illustrated by Debbie. More about Debbie’s broken crayon activities and upcoming book: https://www.debbieohi.com/broken-crayon

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DEBBIE OHI, GURPLE AND PREEN: A BROKEN CRAYON COSMIC ADVENTURE

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Day 7 – Julia Elliot Blends Genres

THE PROMPT

Choose two very different and seemingly incompatible genres and think about how you might combine them to create an interesting piece of fiction.

Sketch out a plan for a longer story or experiment with a single scene for a story.

Some genres: fantasy, folk tale, sci-fi, dystopian, horror, slipstream, magic realism, fairy tale, mystery, detective, noir, Southern Gothic, Appalachian noir, bodice ripper, gorno, tall tale, picaresque, yarn, mockumentary, conspiracy, parody, LGBTQ, pastiche, dark comedy, slasher, chick-lit, new weird, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, saga, historical, pandemic, alternate history, period piece, ghost story, bildungsroman, feminist sci-fi, action, planetary romance, space western, fan fiction, cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk, nanopunk, steampunk, biopunk, superhero, new age, forensic, psychological thriller, docudrama, medical drama, slapstick, Christian, instructional, self-help, dinosaur erotica, cli-fi, postmodern, memoir, disaster, family saga, high fantasy, epistolary novel, fake blog, fictional autobiography, Afrofuturism, fictional biography, space opera, reality, supernatural, speculative, roman a clef, young adult, zombie, wuxia, vampire, allegory, epic, comedy of manners, melodrama, travelogue, creepy kids, splatter, etc. etc. . . .

THE AUTHOR

Julia Elliott’s writing has appeared in Tin House, The Georgia Review, Conjunctions, The New York Times, Granta online, and other publications. She has won a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and her stories have been anthologized in Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses and The Best American Short Stories. Her debut story collection, The Wilds, was chosen by Kirkus, BuzzFeed, Book Riot, and Electric Literature as one of the Best Books of 2014 and was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her first novel, The New and Improved Romie Futch, arrived in October 2015. She teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where she lives with her daughter and husband.

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JULIA ELLIOT, THE WILDS

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Day 6 – Dean Knight Has A Tell-Tale Heart

THE PROMPT

Tell the story of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” from the old man’s point of view–after his murder. 

FROM THE POE MUSEUM

This prompt was supplied by Dean Knight, the Education Coordinator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. You can find out more about the museum here:  www.poemuseum.org 

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EDGAR ALLAN POE, THE PORTABLE EDGAR ALLAN POE

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Day 5 – Mary Robinette Kowal Opens A Portal

THE PROMPT

Freewrite from this opening sentence:

“Of the things that could go wrong while crocheting, opening a portal had seemed like a low probability.”

THE AUTHOR

Hugo Award-winner Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of: The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost Talkers and the Lady Astronaut series. Her stories appear in Uncanny, Cosmos, and Asimov’s.

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MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL, THE CALCULATING STARS

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Day 4 – Joe R. Lansdale is Murderous

THE PROMPT

It was easy to repair the clock in the tower after the headless corpse was removed from the gears. Before that, it was thought to be a problem due to the age of the machinery, but except for the decapitated body, its mechanics were functioning perfectly.

THE AUTHOR

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His most recent novel is The Elephant of Surprise.

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JOE R. LANSDALE, MORE BETTER DEALS: A NOVEL

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Day 3 – Naomi Kritzer Twists Fairy Tales

The Prompt

Think of a fairy tale you like. It can be a well-known one, or one that’s not well-known. (If it’s one you’re familiar with mostly from Disney movies, though, you should probably do a quick re-read of the original fairy tale, because those movies have been known to change a lot of stuff.) Now write a scene from that fairy tale, but reset in some way — you could move it to the present day, or the future. You could also move it to another culture (make sure it’s one you’re very familiar with) or find some other way to turn it upside down. Think about what the story is saying, and how that message changes when the story gets moved. 

The Author

Naomi Kritzer

 Naomi Kritzer’s novelette “The Thing About Ghost Stories” was a finalist for the 2019 Hugo Award; her short story “Cat Pictures Please” won the 2016 Hugo and Locus Awards and was nominated for the Nebula Award. Her YA novel CATFISHING ON CATNET came out from Tor Teen in November 2019.  naomikritzer.com).

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NAOMI KRITZER, CATFISHING ON CATNET

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