The Loft Blog

Every post in this series will focus a weekly reading and a list of prompts in response to that reading. Some of them will be focused on craft; some will ask you to evaluate content. This week, we're examining the story "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel and writing death.

Chris Stedman is a Minneapolis-based writer, speaker, and community organizer. He is the author of IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020) and Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (2012). 

Megha Majumdar’s A Burning is about a young Muslim woman in India who witnesses a terrorist attack and then makes a reckless post on Facebook. She is accused of being a terrorist and ultimately pays a terrible price. I'm interested in how Majumdar handles that price.

Warning: Spoilers in this post.

Every post in this series will focus a weekly reading and a list of prompts in response to that reading. Some of them will be focused on craft; some will ask you to evaluate content. This week, we're examining the essay "Living Like Weasels" by Annie Dillard and how to use structural image.

Every post in this series will focus a weekly reading and a list of prompts in response to that reading. Some of them will be focused on craft; some will ask you to evaluate content. This week, we're examining the poem "Rosa Parks" by Nikki Giovanni and the form of prose poetry.

Ge Gao is a Chinese writer based in New York City. She received a BA in philosophy from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia University. Her essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Longreads, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere.

Roohi Choudhry was born in Pakistan and grew up in southern Africa and the middle east. As a creative writer who worked for more than a decade in data analysis and social research, she is passionate about helping people use left-brain systems alongside right-brain intuition.

Every post in this series will include a weekly reading and a list of prompts in response to that reading. Some of them will be focused on craft; some will ask you to evaluate content. This week we're focusing on the short story "The Miniature Wife" by Manuel Gonzales and the use of absurdity.

Emily Wolahan is a writer and teacher who lives in San Francisco. She has been senior editor at Two Lines Press, editor at JERRY Magazine, and is currently a poetry editor at Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and is the author of the poetry collection HINGE.

Ty Chapman is a Twin Cities–based author, poet, puppeteer, and playwright of Nigerian and European descent. He has been creating art with social justice themes for many years and is passionate about speaking to the Black experience in America.

Kat Kerr joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2019 and is actively seeking to grow her client list. She's particularly hungry for magical realism, literary-leaning speculative and science fiction, women’s fiction, YA works with a lot of heart, and narrative nonfiction with something to say.

Mary C. Moore is an agent with Kimberley Cameron & Associates and is seeking adult, young adult, and middle grade fiction. She is especially hungry for upmarket genre fiction a la Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.