Tag: Don Riggs

Thanksgiving Rituals: Writing Prompt

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We thought you might use this prompt over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. The prompt is based on an idea suggested by Don Riggs.

Take some field-notes on your holiday experiences. Describe in detail your Thanksgiving day rituals. Write from the perspective of a specific type of scholar. For instance, you might use the voice of an anthropologist. As preparation, read one or both of the following:

“‘We Gather Together’: Consumption Rituals of Thanksgiving Day” by Melanie Wallendorf and Eric J. Arnould, from The Journal of Consumer Research,  Vol. 18, No. 1 (June 1991).

For a view from 1952, “Thanksgiving Is Worldwide” by Horace Loftin, from The Science News-Letter,  Vol. 62, No. 21 (Nov. 22, 1952).

You can find the Loftin here: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3931471?uid=3739808&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102905793321

As an alternative style, write a flash fiction piece based on your field-notes.

Naturally, you might substitute other occasions or holidays for Thanksgiving.

Thanks, Don!

Texture Press at Philalalia

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If you’re in Philadelphia these next two days, check out the Philalalia Book and Art Fair at Temple’s Tyler School of Art. Here’s their blog, and a mini-interview on Texture.

http://philalalia.com/2014/09/27/vendor-interview/

http://philalalia.com/

Texture will be there (Don Riggs will be at our table). Texture will be there on Saturday only. You can get a signed copy of his Bilateral Asymmetry! (And check out other texture books, including those by Rose Hunter, Susan Smith Nash, Evald Flisar, and more.)

The event promises to be a really amazing gathering of small press editors, writers, and artists.

“Still Life” (by Don Riggs)

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Still Life

The poet at the desk, lit by a lamp,
surrounded by a dark study. Spines gleam
where the one incandescent bulb reaches,
the rest is in sharp-edged shadow. Elbows
rest on the flat wood, solid support
for shoulders stacked on top of infrastructure
of ribs, cathedral forever unlit
unless surgeons should be called upon

to probe the inner mechanisms the ghost
needs in working order to remain there.
Hands lie on the desk like an afterthought,
the page mostly blank, though there are scribblings
indecipherable to all, even
the one who wrote them, evidently, down.


This is a sneak peek at a poem that will appear in Don Riggs’s upcoming Texture volume, Bilateral Asymmetry. Used by permission of the author.

Writing Prompt: Thanksgiving Rituals

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We thought you might use this prompt over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. The prompt is based on an idea suggested by Don Riggs.

Take some field-notes on your holiday experiences. Describe in detail your Thanksgiving day rituals. Write from the perspective of a specific type of scholar. For instance, you might use the voice of an anthropologist. As preparation, read one or both of the following:

“‘We Gather Together’: Consumption Rituals of Thanksgiving Day” by Melanie Wallendorf and Eric J. Arnould, from The Journal of Consumer Research,  Vol. 18, No. 1 (June 1991).

For a view from 1952, “Thanksgiving Is Worldwide” by Horace Loftin, from The Science News-Letter,  Vol. 62, No. 21 (Nov. 22, 1952).

You can find the Loftin here: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3931471?uid=3739808&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102905793321

As an alternative style, write a flash fiction piece based on your field-notes.

Naturally, you might substitute other occasions or holidays for Thanksgiving.

Thanks, Don!

Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin’s Next Big Thing

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Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing

 

What is the title of your book?

 Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin

 

Where did the idea come from for the book?

 Valerie and I teach poetry writing, and we developed a collection of prompts that always seemed to work for our students. We thought it would be great to share these prompts with teachers and poets, so we developed additional prompts, had some poets contribute prompts, and collected the best examples of poems generated by the prompts. Then we wrapped them all up in this beautiful, and beautifully illustrated, book.

 

What genre does your book fall under?  

Composition & creative writing

 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?  

Martin Freeman would play Randy in “Memo Regarding Your Future.”

Rosalind Russell would play Janice in “Janice.”

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?   

 

Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets offers fourteen classroom- and workshop-tested writing prompts that will appeal to both beginning and experienced poets. 

 

Why did you decide to publish it with Texture Press?

 

The publisher of Texture Press, Susan Smith Nash, was tremendously enthusiastic about this project from the start, and the book fits perfectly with her desire to promote literature and education. 

 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

 

We wrote the first draft in about one year.

 

What other books would you compare this text to within your genre?

 

The only book that comes close is Behn & Twichell’s The Practice of Poetry. But Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets is unique because it not only explains the prompts in a friendly and succinct manner, it also includes sample poems generated by each prompt. The sample poems (at least two sample poems per prompt) are contributed by both beginning and experienced poets. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the prompts and how widely they can be interpreted. The sample poems are sometimes funny, but always stirring and trenchant works in their own right.

 

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

 

We were inspired to write Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets because we saw that busy teachers needed an easy-to-use collection of proven-successful prompts.

 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

 

As soon as readers open the book, they ooh and ahh at Don Riggs’s witty line drawings that illustrate many of the prompts and poems.

 

April Lindner tagged me for The Next Big Thing. Thank you, April!