đ¨Community prompt alert! đ¨
AND - save the date for our first community reading!
Itâs here!
Our next Caravan Community Writing Prompt has arrived, and we canât wait to read what it inspires in you.
But before we send you scurrying off to your desks with the promptâŚ
SAVE THE DATE!
Come celebrate the opening of the next session of the Caravan courses, Craft Campfires, and community events with us.
What: The Inaugural Caravan Community Reading
When: Saturday, September 6
10:45 a.m. PT/1:45 p.m. ET
Where: Same Zoom room as the Write-In: [link].
No charge - no prereqs - no experience necessary - no reading required!
The reading will immediately follow the Weekly Write-In. Weâll give everybody a chance to stretch, refill their coffee cup, walk their creatures, and reconvene; weâll be joined by folks who are attending for the reading only, and off weâll go.
The Caravan instructors will lead off with readings from work weâve started in the Caravan Community - whether in response to a Community Prompt, something we wrote during a Write-In, or works weâve had a chance to develop by taking each other's courses - and then weâll turn it over to the larger Caravan Crew for an open mic.
The Open Mic sign up will be posted two days before the reading (subscribers, youâll get an email just like this), on Thursday, September 4.
We want you here âŹď¸ !!
Not sure what you might want to read?
Well, here comes the Community Prompt.
Sometimes we like our prompts big and sprawling - our Summer Playlist prompt cast a wide net - and sometimes we like âem short and a little bit weird, like Marya the Bear and Bears and Bears, Oh My! prompt that kicked off this series in May.
Sometimes, though, a seemingly straightforward prompt can take us to places weâd long since forgotten or never even imagined, tug our minds in new directions, spark questions we didnât know we wanted to ask, dust off an old photo filed away in our minds, open onto an unknown world hidden behind the coats in a wardrobe, carry us down an unfamiliar road - or send us digging through a box labeled Lost + Found.
Thatâs it - thatâs the prompt. Lost and Found.
Weâve all lost and found more than a few things in our lives. Write about one or the other or both - or, as we like to say at Caravan, go rogue.
Need inspiration? When in doubt, read poems. Here - a few stanzas from Elizabeth Bishopâs brilliant sestina âOne Artâ:
I lost my motherâs watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isnât hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasnât a disaster.
And one from Dg Nanouk Okpikâs poem âFoundâ:
Taken: âduck foot skin; an owl with five owlets; nesting minks; caught in a fish trap. A bird egg found in winter.â
Youâll have to read the rest of Bishopâs to find out what sheâs really lost, and the rest of Okpikâs to find out what is âgivenâ and what might be âfound.â
The first two community prompts have prompted you to share such a wealth of wonderful writing - as have our courses, workshops, and the weekly Write-Ins! - that weâve created âŚ
A Caravan Community Writing Round-Up
Hereâs a quick highlight reel of some incredible writing that found its spark somewhere in the Caravan rooms and was stoked and tended by the wonderful writers who make up the larger writing community. (Did we miss yours? Let us know! And donât forget to tag us in future posts so we can share!)
From our first Community Prompt, âBear and Bears and Bears, Oh My!â:
No One Ever Forgets a Bear, by Matt Smythe
Four Bearing, by Paul Corman-Roberts,
Postcard from the Path, by Marya Hornbacher
One Womanâs Gaping Maw and The Art of Bearing What We Bare and Bear, by Holly Starley
Wild Encounter with the Sublime, by Julie Gabrielli
Turkeys, Chow Chows and a Great Neighborhood Thaw, by Kate Sonnick
A Letter from Denali, by Kendall Lamb
The Bear, by Paul Crenshaw (and donât miss its companion piece, The Bear Story)
Bears Are Hard, by Toni Jeffrey
Just Bearly Light Enough, by Janice Anne Wheeler
Check out all these happy faces diving into craft!
From our second prompt, the Summer Playlist:
The Necessity of Cut Grass, by Matt Smythe
Snapshots, Soundtrack, by Marya Hornbacher
The Pepsi Challenge, by Paul Corman-Roberts
Kaleidoscope to a Road, by Holly Starley
July Meant Freedom, nothing to prove, no one to please, by Teyani Whitman
Returning Home to Cabbagetown, by Duwan Dunn
A Prelude to Winter, by Evelyn Fox
Holy smokes, do we âĽď¸ writing with you!
From Courses, Workshops, and Weekly Write-Ins:
âICYMI: Dead Presidents (Except for Five) by Toni Jeffrey
This gorgeous note by Julie Gabrielli
Sticky Candy: getting unstuck from unsubstantiated emptiness by Kris Onyx
Dear Leah, weeds are ruining my marriage by Archetypal Herbalism
Beauty Wins: Iâm trying to tell you what Iâve heard by Elizabeth Beggins
We Are a Many-Feathered Creature by Holly Starley
THINKING OF RASPBERRY KOOL-AID: A story of makeshift bike ramps and safety-second in the '70s by Matt Smythe
Gangs of Bay Station Island by Paul Corman-Roberts
Save the date: Caravan Community Reading, September 6!
and start your enginesâŚ
Your next Community Prompt is
âŚLost + Found.
We canât wait to read where this takes you!








Just published my essay responding to this prompt
https://stayingtogether.substack.com/p/lost-or-found-its-what-we-hang-onto
Wow, since I recently signed up for Caravan Writers Collective, this is the first roundup I've seen that resulted from the writing prompts! It's intriguing to see how this works. Planning to join you on September 6th. I assume we bring what we wrote based on "Lost + Found"?