A POCKET BOOK OF
PROMPTS
Leaf
Seligman. Bauhan Publishing, $9.95 paperback (96p) ISBN: 9780872332003
Memoirists,
personal essayists, confessional poets, and diarists will get much use from
Leaf Seligman’s A Pocket Book of Prompts,
which challenges writers to engage with their lives. For writers who need help
to get moving, Seligman’s book offers a gentle shove.
The
prompts are open-ended and varied. For the taciturn, most prompts include
follow-up questions to encourage more depth. Divided into two sections, “First
Day Prompts” contains quick starter questions such as “If you could interview
one person from history, who would it be?” In the right hands, this prompt
might spark historical fiction or fever-dream poems. The other section, “Prompts
for Deeper Reflection,” includes more elaborate assignments, such as completing
a series of 5-sentence autobiographies.
This
book isn’t for everyone. Some readers will be turned off by the New Age tone.
And writers for whom personal reflection is creative
kryptonite might not gravitate toward this book. But there are some prompts
even for them. Several, for example, encourage writers to imagine fictional
scenarios or interactions with intangible concepts (“Write an ode or a make-up
letter to uncertainty”). And fiction writers of all persuasions will find this
book helpful as a tool for character development.
As
with writing prompts themselves, this book is what you make of it. Anyone
looking to discover more about their “authentic self” will find a trove of
possibilities here. And those wanting to start a daily habit of personal
writing will find these prompts up to the challenge. (July 2015)
Purchase
A Pocket Book of Prompts HERE.
Reviewer
bio: Jeannie Hoag’s chapbook of poems, New
Age of Ferociousness, was published by Agnes Fox Press, and her work has
recently appeared in Divine Magnet.
