Write into the Week: December 14, 2025

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad—and see how they do it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out.”
–William Faulkner

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: Read Everything

I find William Faulkner’s advice to be blunt yet liberating: “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad—and see how they do it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out.” I love how little preciousness there is in that approach. No handwringing or judgement about taste, or what’s considered “literary.” Just attention, curiosity, and practice.

Reading widely—in and out of the genres in which we write—teaches us things craft books can’t. We learn what holds our interest, where we skim, when a sentence makes us pause, or when a scene loses us entirely. We learn structure by feeling it in our bodies. We learn voice by recognizing when one sounds false. Even “bad” writing is instructive, as it sometimes teaches us exactly what we don’t want to do on the page.

This week, let go of the pressure to curate your reading too carefully. Just read. Read outside your usual lanes. Allow yourself to enjoy things without the need to defend them, and abandon things not holding your interest without guilt. Then write.

Writing Prompt: Read New, Write New

Choose something to read this week that you would normally skip. It could be a genre you don’t usually touch, a publication you never pick up, a poem style you think “isn’t for you,” a news article, a piece of flash, even something you’d secretly roll your eyes at. Read it with openness and curiosity, not judgment.

Then, write something new. Borrow the energy of the piece, not the content: the pacing, the voice, the structure, etc. Let the piece you read give you permission to try something different on the page. See what happens when you write without worrying whether it’s good yet.

Reading Recommendations:

Poetry:

• “Photoshop Techniques” by Grace Mathews – Mathews uses the logic of digital editing to interrogate control and embodiment. The poem quietly destabilizes our sense of agency, asking what happens when we try to select, undo, or soften realities.

Fiction:

• “Process” by Katherine Dunn – In this quiet yet devastating story, a master color mixer spends his life circling a single blank canvas, returning to it again and again as both refuge and torment. “Process” is a precise, unsentimental portrait of devotion, solitude, and the slow, lifelong labor of making something that may never resolve.

Nonfiction:

• “The Heavy Bag” by Amber Wong – In personal essay, Wong traces a lifetime of racialized fear, belonging, and resilience—from childhood taunts to a public act of hate, from a football stadium charged with post-election anxiety to a father teaching his daughter how to strike back.

Listening Recommendations:

• From The Lit Hub podcast: “December 12, 2025” – From Lit Hub: It’s the end of the year! Which means: best-of lists, abounding. Maybe you’ve seen our Favorite Books of 2025 list, or our Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025 list, or the 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025 list spearheaded by Miriam Gershow? Whether or not you’ve combed the lists, we’ve got some staff here to share some of their favorite reads from 2025 and then a chat with Miriam about putting together this ambitious Small Press list!
• From Adam Walker’s Close Reading Poetry YouTube channel: “The Decline of the English Department” – This video considers what English departments were like during their height and how public readership might recover the ground that English departments lost. As someone who graduated college with an English Literature degree in 2003, I found it rather interesting!

Publishing Opportunities:

• Seedlings Studio – Submission Window: Open. A unique publishing opportunity! Seedling’s is currently on the hunt for novellas, poetry collections, and more for their new series: Seedlings Pamphlets. Submissions should be 50 pages max, and explore the human relationship to the natural world. Check their Instagram or website for more details. 
• Hayden’s Ferry Review – Submission Deadline: December 31, 2025. HFR has extended their submission deadline! Submit now—genres welcome! See their website for more details. 
• Salt Hill Journal – Submission Deadline: January 31, 2026. Accepting salty new poetry, fiction, essay, and art submissions for their next issue. Their submission windows only open twice a year. Submit!

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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