Did your story take home the Promptly gold?
It’s that time again — time, alongside a Writer’s Digest comrade, to gnash our teeth, hold our breath and force ourselves to pick a top story from the past month’s…
It’s that time again — time, alongside a Writer’s Digest comrade, to gnash our teeth, hold our breath and force ourselves to pick a top story from the past month’s creative cavalcade of responses to various prompts.
For August-September, with the help of magazine staffer and WD Books Editor Scott Francis, we selected Megan Hyman’s “Cynic!” piece. As Scott said, “the voice and the tone are so telling that though the story is short, you come to understand the emotions of the characters.” For her story, Megan will receive a copy of Bang The Keys: Four Steps to a Lifelong Writing Practice by Jill Dearman, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us by Jessica Page Morrell, Sorrow Wood by Raymond L. Atkins, a copy of the WD Novel Writing special newsstand publication, and a copy of the WD Guide to Creativity newsstand publication.
As always, thanks to everyone who shared their work here in the last month. It means a lot to me, as the blog’s curator, and I’ve heard from other people at WD and scattered about the country how much they love reading all of the pieces, too.
Every time you write a story here it could take home some picks from the WD office swag bag, but perhaps most important, it may help other writers get their creative wheels turning, and it flexes and sharpens that strange muscle—the one most of us don’t have a hope in the world of burying or setting aside, even if we wanted to.
Here’s to hoping we never do.
*Megan, please send an e-mail to writersdigest [at] fwmedia [dot] com marked "Attn: Zachary Petit," so I can get the goods shipped out to you!
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WRITING PROMPT:From the Attic
To respond to the following prompt, courtesy of Scott Francis (check out his blog at seescottwrite.wordpress.com) post your stories, in 500 words or fewer, in the Comments section of Promptly:
You are awakened in the middle of the night by a strange tapping noise coming from your attic. You decide to investigate, and after moving a few old boxes, you find what appears to be a telegraph receiver hidden in a small hole in the wall.
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The October issue of WD is now on newsstands. Check out our community issue here, featuring writing forums, online collectives, bestsellers riffing on writers’ organizations, and even the keys to making the most of a nightmare conference. What’s worth your time these days?

Zachary Petit is a freelance journalist and editor, and a lifelong literary and design nerd. He's also a former senior managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ZacharyPetit.