Write into the Week: September 21, 2025
Elle | Community Manager | September 20, 2025 |
“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
–Twyla Tharp
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
Writer to Writer: On Escapism and Imagination
These days, I spend a good portion of the year traveling around the Earth, finding creative inspiration in every new place I visit. But for the first three decades of my life, I was mostly stuck at home. Back then, writing was the only escape I had to satisfy my wanderlust.
Sometimes, the page is the only place we can go. Whether you’re writing fiction, memoir, poetry, or journaling to help survive the week, there’s something about shaping the world with language that offers both escape and return. As writers, we can vanish—into a scene, a sentence, a stanza—and resurface having gone somewhere new and true, without ever leaving our desk chair.
This kind of imaginative movement is not frivolous. It’s a form of resilience. In times when the outside world feels rigid or overwhelming, making something new becomes a kind of anchor. We’re not just slipping away from reality—we’re reshaping it, even if only inside the boundaries of a paragraph or stanza. The world may feel stuck, but your creative life doesn’t have to be.
So if you’ve been feeling trapped, restless, or frozen lately, take it as a sign: the impulse to wander might be the exact thing to follow. Let your art open a side door. Go somewhere strange, soothing, dramatic, or absurd. The act of imagining is motion. Imagination may not change the world overnight, but it can change how we move through it—word by word.
Writing Prompt:
In the quiet moments, when you’re daydreaming, where does your imagination go? Start a story, poem, or essay in that place. Let it unspool without logic, limits or rules. Your job is to follow the spark down a new path.
Reading Recommendations:
Fiction:
- The Booker Prize 2025 Longlist – I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut lately. Nothing is grabbing me in the ways I desire. Whenever that happens, I typically turn to literary fiction reads to reset. I’m currently making my way through this year’s Booker Prize longlist. Looking for your next read? You might find it here!
Poetry:
- Book Picks from The Poetry Foundation – If you’re looking for a new book of poetry to stoke the flames of creative inspiration, I’m sure you’ll find something to intrigue you on this list of poetic publications.
Nonfiction:
- Nonfiction and Memoir Book Recommendations by NPR – This list of nonfiction books and memoir published this year has something for everyone. I encourage you to check out Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life by Maggie Smith, or Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green.
Listening Recommendations:
- From The Moth Podcast: “The Moth Radio Hour: Clean Breaks” – In this hour, stories of clean breaks—emotional and physical. Tidy endings, broken bones, and fresh starts. This episode is hosted by Moth Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness.
- From The Writer Files Podcast: “How #1 Sunday Times Bestselling Author Stuart MacBride Writes” – #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Stuart MacBride discusses playing god, why there are no shortcuts for writers, and his latest Logan McRae novel This House of Burning Bones.
Publishing Opportunities:
- The Seneca Review – Submission Deadline: November 1, 2025. Seeking submissions of original essays (up to 20 pages) and poetry. They also have “beyond” category open to submissions. In their own words, for this category, they’d like to see experimental typography, splicings, documentary poetics, visual-textual hybrids, multimedia essays, collage, live coding, new media, old media with new applications, audio, video, bio-art, book arts, etc.
- River Styx Magazine – Submission Window: Currently Open. Seeking submissions of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual media for both print and online editions.
Residency & Retreat Opportunities:
- Micro-Residency at Bischoff Inn in Pennsylvania – Applications: Open for residencies taking place from November 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026. The Bischoff Inn offers writers and artists subsidized residencies of 7-14 days. They invite you to come, craft and relax.
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.
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