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Check out these two lovebirds. Of course, they are actually penguins, and perhaps this photo will inspire you to write about penguins...or perhaps you will be compelled to write about your beloved, your person, your Valentine...

Today is the first day of a brand new year. When you think about where you have been, where you are now, and where you want to go, what word comes to mind, writer?

The centuries-old practice of placing candles in windows has served many purposes, from signaling to those seeking shelter or refuge that they are welcome to reminding us that we have what we need to survive the winter...

Let's explore food and family gatherings this month, the month when many of us gather to give thanks. What will that gathering look like for you this pandemic year?

What are you afraid of? What should scare you, but doesn't? What can you appreciate about the thing that scares you the most in the world?

These late summer sunflowers stretching to soak up the light, lifting their heavy heads to the sky, sturdy stalks like tree trunks--there is an easy metaphor here. What sustains you?

The art we make. The work we do while others move around us, oblivious, indifferent, or simply too busy to notice. The traps we set. The very idea of a web, a network, a series of connections, attempted or established. Our fears. Our intentions. Our efforts, day after day, night after night.

What do you think of when you look at this image? Write about it.

Monthly photo prompt writing contest for email list community members!

If you aren’t currently enrolled in a Center course (or even if you are!) but want to write with us, we host a community-building photo writing prompt project through our email list.

How it works

Maybe the fighting nature of the beta fish leads you to a metaphor about current events or a personal conflict, past or present. Maybe you interpret "fight" in a positive way; when is "being a fighter" a positive trait? Or maybe it conjures the memory of a pet, or a childhood trip to a pet store with walls full of fish in lidded plastic dishes, waiting to be chosen. What do you think of when you look at this image? Write about it.

Everyone has a shadow. Maybe this photo makes you think of your first awareness of your shadow as a child, how you hopped around trying to escape it, or pondered how it stretched and shrank but still followed you everywhere. Maybe this photo makes you consider your shadow self, in psychological or even spiritual terms--the part you might perceive as inferior, the part we deny, refuse, or project onto others. We all have one. Come out of the shadow.

What do you think about when you look at this image? Write about it.

Tell us about your home, your nest, your home base, real or ideal, imagined or remembered. Since we're all spending so much time at home these days, let's muse on what makes a home, or how we know we've arrived there, and why there's no place like it. And who is there with you? Maybe your home isn't a place, but a partner...