Catapult | Don't Write Alone

Cover Photo: This photograph has a black background. A hand holds up what looks like an entire deck of cards, splayed open in a fan, in the middle of the photograph frame.

Divining Your Divergent Interests: The Card Oracle Method

The oracle part sounds mysterious, but it just means drawing cards from a shuffled deck and treating the results as an answer key for generating new writing.

Julian K. Jarboe

Mar 23, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This photograph shows someone draped in a sheet with the eye holes cut out like a cartoon ghost. It's a gray day and they are standing at the end of a road and waving.

Magical Realism and Cultural Context

Learn how to devise a rough concept for a magical realist story with this prompt from classes instructor Jessica Reidy.

Jessica Reidy

Mar 03, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This photograph is a composite image of a solar eclipse in December 2019. The moon is shown spread across the sky in a line in 9 phases: crescents at the corner and full circles in the middle of the photograph. The sky fades from a deep cerulean blue to orange above a desert landscape.

Creation by Negation

Thwart your own impulses toward one genre or another with this generative writing exercise from Ben Purkert.

Ben Purkert

Feb 01, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This photograph is entirely dark, save for a small bright ring light in the center of the photograph, held delicately by a hand whose fingers are softly illuminated by the clear light.

Speculative Artist’s Statement for Queer Writers

Try out Atom Atkinson’s speculative artist’s statement, developed to help their students pivot from past educations to a utopian future of their own design.

Atom Atkinson

Jan 27, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a giraffe looking at the camera with its tongue sticking out. It's a close-up picture, so we only see the bright blue sky and a giraffe head with its long neck peeking into the right corner of the frame.

Writing In Between the Real and Unreal

Sanjena Sathian thinks the most interesting writing material comes from locating mystery in our own lives. Try out this writing exercise to write into that mystery.

Sanjena Sathian

Jan 18, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a blue miniature Lego Doctor Who TARDIS sitting on a patch of grass. It's a bright sunny day and the sky behind the TARDIS is clear and blue.

Creating Scenes for Discovery

Storytelling is like the TARDIS in ‘Doctor Who’—the narrower and more specific we get on the outside, the bigger it gets on the inside.

A. E. Osworth

Jan 12, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This image is a screenshot from Phoebe Bridgers' music video for "Kyoto." In this still, Phoebe is flying over a city at sunset wearing a shirt with a skeleton on it.

Tell More Lies

Poems and stories are only two sorts of lies, but they’re the ones Steven Duong tells most often. Try out his writing exercise to generate new work.

Steven Duong

Jan 03, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This image is a photograph of a hand, turned sidewise so it looks like the thumb meeting the fingers is a face. There are googly eyes stuck to the hand above its "mouth."

Turning Reality into Comedy

There’s comedic gold all around you—if you know how to mine it. Check out this writing prompt used by Catapult instructor Caitlin Kunkel in one of her classes!

Caitlin Kunkel

Aug 10, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This image has crumpled paper in the background and the cover of the book in the corner, which reads "Letter to a Young Poet"

Remember, You Are in Conversation

When I’m feeling stuck and lonely, I try to remember that I’m in conversation with the world—that I am alive in it and it is alive through me.

Larissa Pham

Jul 06, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: This picture shows someone holding up to a magnifying glass filled with smoke. The smoke becomes pink and magical looking through the magnifying glass.

Make it Sharper, Make it Stranger

Simon Han shares an exercise to help make your sentences stronger and more surprising during the revision process.

Simon Han

Jun 29, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: The author shares a scan of his SEPTA key and has left notes about what it reminds him of.

Writing the Autobiography of Your Stuff

The detritus of our lives can serve as a cannon for fiction or nonfiction writing.

Krys Malcolm Belc

Jun 07, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: In this photograph, we are looking into a small kitchen: pushed up against a fridge, we see an old oven, whose stovetop balances a shiny pot and kettle. There are towels and rags and old plastic bags hung from the oven's handles and scattered across the floor. A butter-yellow door opens on the right of the photo, mirroring a yellow door opening to a different room behind the kitchen. The light coming in through the windows is also butter-yellow.

Let’s Talk About Imagery

It’s hard to talk about love without clichés, but what about images you associate with love? Poet José Olivarez shares lessons on imagery learned from country music.

José Olivarez

Jun 07, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: We see a photograph of two hands shaking against a mellow yellow background. The hands look as if they might be older men and one hand is a few tones paler than the other. This photograph is showed three times in a row and the wrists connect at the end of the picture, as if part of a hand-shaking rope

Let Translation Guide You Into Writing

Check out this writing and reading exercise from classes instructor Poupeh Missaghi

Poupeh Missaghi

May 12, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: In this photograph, we see a mural painted on a dirty white wall. The mural was spray painted in blues, reds, and whites, and portrays a man who is baring his teeth and putting his hands up to his face, as if in pain.

The Pain Scale Exercise

Try this writing exercise from Madeleine Watts: Sometimes the restrictions and limitations imposed by a given structure can help you more than complete creative freedom does.