Write into the Week: June 15, 2025

Elle LaMarca | June 15, 2025 |

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
–Herman Melville

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writing Prompt

Start with an image, phrase, or feeling that keeps resurfacing in your writing, mind or life. Follow it. Don’t try to shape it into something right away. Just write where it wants to go.

Writer to Writer: Let the Work Lead You

Sometimes writing feels like wandering without a compass—especially when we’re in the murky middle of a project or unsure where a piece is headed. But often, the best work lives off the map, outside our outlines, in places we didn’t plan to visit. A scene you wrote just to warm up might hold the emotional core of your novel. A lost memory may return unexpectedly, and find its place in a poem, or spark the seed of a new essay.

Some weeks, I catch myself thinking more than writing. I spend hours trying to plan, solve, and figure it all out in advance. It’s a habit I try to break, because I know my best work rarely arrives that way. What I’ve learned (and keep re-learning) is that clarity often comes through the writing, not before it. We don’t always know what a story or idea means until we spend time inside it.

This week, don’t worry about whether your words are “getting you somewhere.” Instead, let them take you off course. Follow the thread that feels most alive. If you feel uncertain about what you’re writing or where it’s going, don’t panic. Stay curious. Keep going. Give up control, and let the writing lead you.

Reading Recommendations:

Fiction:

“Gondola” by Etgar Keret.What begins as a dating app rendezvous between a married man and a curious woman quickly veers into the surreal. Keret masterfully upends cliché with disarming weirdness and unexpected emotional turns.

Nonfiction:

“Documenting My Life So I Don’t Forget” by Saachi Gupta. In this personal essay, Gupta explores memory, loss, and the impulse to document everything before it slips away. From first kisses to family rituals, she unpacks what it means to preserve, and what it means to forget.

Poetry:

It will be Summer eventually— by Emily Dickinson. A classic for the season. Dickinson weaves her signature precision and emotional depth into an exploration on seasonal change, memory, and mortality.

Listening Recommendations:

From The Poetry Lab Podcast: “How Do We Cope in These Times? The Practice of Resistance“. This episode discusses how creative practice cab be a form of resistance. Listen and learn the power in everyday acts of resilience and showing up with intention.
Listen to Dior J. Stephens read his poem, “a letter to charlie parker“. Dior J. Stephens is a Black poet and the author of two poetry collections: ATOMIC I (Nightboat Books, 2027) and CRUEL/CRUEL (Nightboat Books, 2023).

Publishing Opportunities:

Tupelo Press – Submission Deadline: June 30, 2025 Submissions call for The Writes of Spring anthology. Seeking work that “embraces all takes on themes of rebirth and renewal—from optimistic to numinous, from luminous to satirical, and everything in between.”
Hayden’s Ferry Review – Submission Window: June 15-July 15, 2025. Seeking submissions of poetry, prose, translation and art for their fall print issue.

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

Posted in: Write into the Week

Elle LaMarca

Elle is a writer and novelist originally from southwestern New York, now residing on the central coast in California. She does not miss the snow even a little bit. As an avid traveler, Elle can frequently be found wandering the globe, having lived in and explored over thirty countries, all while gaining inspiration for her writing and new perspectives on life. Elle is a former educator and Teach for America alumna, having taught in Los Angeles, Baltimore and Boston. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from George Mason University and a M.A. in Education and Curriculum Design from Johns Hopkins University. She is passionate about well-crafted sentences and memorable metaphors. Elle is currently at work on a novel and a collection of personal essays.