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NewPages Blog :: Writing Prompts

Looking for a spark of inspiration? Our biweekly writing prompts are designed to challenge your creativity, deepen your storytelling, and help you reconnect with your writing practice. Whether you’re journaling, drafting fiction, or just trying to get words on the page, these prompts offer a fresh starting point every Monday—straight from our newsletter and every Friday with our Where to Submit Roundups.

Where to Submit Roundup: May 23, 2025

It’s that time of the week again—Fri-yay! 🎉

NewPages is back with our weekly roundup of submission opportunities, plus a dose of creative inspiration to help get your ideas flowing. Kick off the long weekend with fresh prompts and venues to help you hit your writing and publishing goals.

Inspiration: Just Like ABC

Abecedarian poems can be tricky—finding the right rhythm and words for those tough letters like Q, X, and Z is no small feat. But what if you turned that challenge into a song?

Back in elementary school, we learned songs that celebrated Michigan’s history—from voyageurs and logging camps to sailing the Great Lakes. One song stood out: it listed reasons why Michigan was a great place to live, from A to Z.

That got me thinking: what if you created your own alphabetical ode to where you live? Try listing reasons—serious or silly—why your state, city, township, or province is wonderful. Or flip the script and list reasons you don’t love it. Maybe even do both for a fun contrast.

You don’t have to stick to song lyrics or poetry. This could become a children’s story, a young adult piece, a lyric essay, or even an adult picture book. Explore how the quirks and flaws of a place might actually be what makes it feel like home.

Stretch those creative muscles. And if you have kids, get them involved! It’s a great long weekend activity that might just spark something worth submitting.

Speaking of the long weekend—NewPages wishes you a wonderful and safe Memorial Day.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Roundup: May 23, 2025”

Where to Submit Roundup: May 16, 2025

Inspiration: Your Personal Memorial Day

Stuck in a writing rut? Want some inspiration?

Those living in the U.S. know Memorial Day, which is approaching soon, is meant to honor and mourn military personnel who died in service. It’s an important day of remembrance—but like many important days, it’s become commercialized as the unofficial start of summer and long weekends. That alone is good fodder for writing, isn’t it? A social loss of something sacred reduced to a day off and a barbecue.

But what is your own personal Memorial Day?

Not the holiday itself, but a day in your year—or a weekend, or a week—that holds deep meaning. Was it the day you finally took the leap and left the place you hated to do what you loved? What era did that mark in your personal history? Was it the best thing to happen to you? Or not quite what you imagined it to be?

Or perhaps it was a profound loss. How do you celebrate what was lost while mourning the fact that it’s gone? How do you honor its place in your life?

Grab your pen and start writing. Let it be sloppy, messy, riddled with mistakes—because all that matters is you are writing. And maybe, just maybe, you can find the strength to talk of things that always felt out of reach.

Time Marches On

Somehow May is half over with—didn’t it just begin? I know, I know, enough with the flying-time jokes, but they never seem to get old. Time always seems to speed up when we want it to slow down and drag when we wish it would fly. It’s Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in action—or at least, that’s how it feels.

While time marches on to the beat of its drum (which never seems steady enough for us), we march on too. Let’s keep submission goals going strong, shall we?

Continue reading “Where to Submit Roundup: May 16, 2025”