I’ve been teaching Creative Writing for Social Work at the University of Iowa School of Social Work since 1999, exploring the use of creative writing as a tool for personal transformation and social activism. Writing offers us a way to make sense of what happens in our lives, and it can help us to imagine … Continue reading Journal Writing Workshop for Caregivers
writers on writing
Write Now
We create the stories we live by, and live by the stories we create. We can’t change the past, but we can transform its influence on us with creative writing. It turns out, writing can have side effects. Happiness is complicated. Write to heal. Find out more at http://www.ellenszabo.com
Love and Apocalypse – Externalize Your Inner Apocalypse with Creative Writing
Available on Amazon. This book is for anyone who wants to use creative writing to feel better by externalizing their inner apocalypse. Using 25 writing prompts with evocative photographs, readers are encouraged to make meaning of their life experiences by discovering, emphasizing and illuminating changed perspectives. Every character and every story we write, is autobiographical. … Continue reading Love and Apocalypse – Externalize Your Inner Apocalypse with Creative Writing
tilt
Days are longer in the spring, as the Earth’s axis increases its tilt relative to the Sun. ebszabo Climate Fiction (CliFi) is a genre that addresses the ways that climate change is already transforming our world. By anticipating and elaborating on what these changes might mean in the not so distant future, writers of CliFi use … Continue reading tilt
only trouble
Janet Burroway wrote this about story: "Only trouble is interesting." ebszabo What we believe becomes the landscape in which we live. Write the story of a character who's beliefs created this place to call home. ebszabo
art from shackles
What happens to you when you see this prompt on your screen? Creating a password can be as agonizing and fraught with drama as beginning or ending a relationship. How much do you reveal, how much can you hide? What secret code will unlock this other's heart? Will the secret code elude you in the moments … Continue reading art from shackles
holiday cliché
In 50 words, create a Thanksgiving gathering characterized by cliché. Then, using 50 more words, introduce someone whose arrival gives new meaning to "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Some say writers who use cliches betray a lack of original thought - make them wrong. Begin here: David Cooper, US Fish and Wildlife Service End here: Jerry … Continue reading holiday cliché
mutiny is bounty
When you write, be mutinous. If you’re not afraid, or insecure, or filled with foreboding, it’s probably because you’re obeying too many rules. "Grammar is a piano I play by ear." Joan Didion Essays & Conversations Find the pace and sound that's indigenous to you and use it.
twitter recap
For those of you who don't follow me @ebszabo on Twitter, here's what you missed: #RulesOnWriting #BreakTheRules be consistent and create your own #CreativeWriting #Innovation #WriteNow #FreeConsult @MargaretAtwood “forces us to see in such sharp relief that we feel compelled to share her worries and thus to act on them.” #DrewFaust #Read to write & … Continue reading twitter recap
cry wolf
“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him.” Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature Take us to the moment … Continue reading cry wolf
Szabo Creative Consulting 