WE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY AFFILIATED WITH ANY OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS
***We want to be clear that when we say ‘prompting partners’ it is colloquial—this is a community of prompt writers, readers, organizers, influencers, editors etc. who all are on the same mission to help spark creativity. We are not legally or officially partnered with any of these organizations. We just think they’re awesome & we have acknowledged them as sources of prompts which we will consider for our ‘online prompt source’ theme.***
We are always looking for more promptsters, so please contact us if you know of other significant sources of writing prompts or exercises & you think we should accept pieces ‘sparked by’ their prompts as well. When you submit a piece inspired by a ‘partner’ be sure to link to the original prompt.
Notebooking Daily: The main source. We’re always reading pieces inspired by ND prompts, & there are prompts of all types for both fiction writers & poets. Copy/paste the prompt’s title or address (right-clicking the title to “copy link as”) into the email.
3Elements Literary Review: A quarterly magazine that uses one of my favorite styles of writing prompts: 3 things. Take these three words or things & find a way to make them fit in an interesting way. There are hundreds of 3 things prompts at Notebooking Daily.
Rattle Poets Respond: Rattle‘s a treasure in the lit mag world & Poets Respond is a weekly feature where they publish a poem that responds in some way to a news story published that week.
Rattle Monthly Ekphrastic Contest: Rattle‘s a… deja vu. This is their ekphrastic contest where every month they have a new piece of art for poets to respond to.
Rattlecast: Rattle… rocks. They’re a tremendous source of inspiration, & their podcast is no exception. Each live podcast is part interview, part reading & part prompt-inspired open mic.
Poets & Writers The Time is Now: From Poets & Writers magazine is The Time is Now where they post one poetry & one fiction prompt each week inspired by a piece of writing which they link to.
Furious Fiction: The first weekend of every month the Australian Writer’s Centre runs a 55 hour story contest with a new unique set of constraints & requirements. The contest has a word limit of 500 words, & the winner receives $500.
Chain: From the Canadian magazine Carousel, this fun project has poets responding to the previously published poem, creating a ‘poetry chain’ with one poem posted every month (except December). Be sure to tell us which poem you’re responding to.
The Ekphrastic Review Bi-Weekly Challenges: The Ekphrastic Review is a great journal for ekphrastic writing, & twice a month they run little challenge prompts.
Poetry Foundation Poetry & Practice: Though short-lived, this year the Poetry Foundation had a weekly prompt series for different aged writers—there are a fair amount to try out.
Writer’s Digest: Poetic Asides: Robert Lee Brewer’s awesome blog posts prompts every Wednesday, they’re in the 500s now, & they have some good interaction in the comment section. Aimed at poets & definitely worth your time.
Reddit’s r/WritingPrompts Community: A sprawling subreddit (though, in some ways insular) with tons of members who are just swell—this is probably 95% aimed at fiction, & we’re hesitant to publish “Established Universe” work unless it’s clearly used for literary effect. There are lots of awesome places for fan fiction, we’re just not one of them. But if you’ve got something literary in response to an r/WritingPrompts prompt, send it our way!
Contemporary Verse 2: 2-Day Poem Contest: This annual contest from the Canadian journal CV2 gets tons of submissions & is a lot of fun. You sign up in advance & then everyone gets a list of ten words they have to use & 48 hours to write a poem using them. It happens every year in April. (I recently published a poem I wrote ages ago for the contest in Bindweed Magazine)