🆆 Micro Monday: Poetry Belongs to Everyone
Micro Monday Newsletter Prompt #128
It’s Micro Monday, where you get a quote and a writing prompt to help you build a portfolio of work. If you’re new to micro prose and writing with me, check out this post here.
Quote #128
Poetry’s a thing that belongs to everyone.
Natasha Trethewey
Prompt #128
Describe an encounter with a wild animal.
Set the timer for 10 minutes and start writing. When the timer goes off, give the piece a title, count up the words, and post it below.
Writing Workshop: From the Junk Drawer (Week 3)
It’s our third and final week of my Substack Writing Workshop, “From the Junk Drawer.” It’s not too late to get some writing done and find inspiration in our many shared and submitted junk drawers.
The next 3-week writing workshop begins June 30, “Paint Chips and Prose.” Paid subscribers have instant access when it begins.
10-Minute Live Writing Session (Free)
June 12, 2025 Thurs 3:00 pm PDT
June 17, 2025 Tues 3:00 pm PDT
June 26, 2025 Thurs 12:00 pm PDT
July 4, 2025 Thurs 2:00 pm PDT
Join me on Substack for 10-minute Live Writing Sessions (LWS). The live session is free; the recording and archives are for paid subscribers.
I sign on 5 minutes before the top of the hour and stay for 5 minutes after to answer questions or do a short craft talk. We always start writing at the top of the hour, and you are welcome to pop in and pop out. Even if you join with 2 minutes left on the timer, you will get some writing done. Trust the process and yourself as a writer.
Most sessions include PDF downloads for paid subscribers to add to their Writer-ish writing and craft binder. Past writing sessions are here.
“Artifact” by Darien Gee
Last week my hybrid essay appeared in Short Reads. “Artifact” (670 words) is about my decade-long estrangement from my brother; the note below shares what happened a month before my micro essay collection, Allegiance (winner of the bronze IPPY award in Essays), was published (and where “Artifact” originally appeared).
and I also discuss it in our Substack Live, “Three Things,” if you’d like to geek out on the construction/deconstruction of a flash piece.
A huge congrats to Cindy Sams who used a prompt from a Micro Monday newsletter two weeks ago and got that piece into the world!
"Just wanted to tell you that a piece I wrote last week based on one your prompts has been accepted by The Blue Mountain Review. Yay!"
Here’s my first raw attempt at writing to the prompt. 208 words, zero edits. I’m not proud of it, but posting anyway!
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Raccoon kitten
I pulled into my driveway in the darkness. Stopped the car, put on the hand brake, and turned my head slightly to the right. I froze. My eyes met two dark pools in a dim grey aura, and I was horrified. The creature, like nothing I'd ever seen before, was also frozen in space and time. Slowly it dawned on me: that must be a raccoon. It was my first time seeing one, and I winced with a feeling of disgust so strong I almost vomited. My pulse is quickening even as I write this now, a decade and a half later. I waited for the raccoon to scamper away before I dared open my car door. I felt like I had seen a ghost.
These days, I have a gorgeous kitten at home, but there's one problem: she kinda looks like a raccoon. She has a grey-white raccoon tail, and a racoon-like white body, and sometimes she shoves her face somewhere that she isn’t supposed to and from behind I swear I'm looking at a freaking raccoon again. But I love her. I even call her my little raccoon as a term of endearment. Maybe in this way, I'm finally getting rid of my fear of raccoons.