Writing prompt #10: A BRIEF HANDBOOK TO GROWING UP

Hi Everyone,

Recently, I was in touch with my friend and former student—author Marisel Vera—who reminded me of this prompt. Back in 2017, I used it in a generative workshop at Las Dos Brujas conference in San Francisco. Marisel told me that it was her model to write “How to Raise a Puerto Rican Girl” and sections of her novel, Taste of Sugar.

Please listen to Jamaica Kincaid read her short, powerful piece “Girl,” or click the link to its original publication in The New Yorker forty-three years ago.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/06/26/girl

YOUR PROMPT: Write your own handbook to growing up after Kincaid’s “Girl.” Your narrator can be anyone in the child’s world and from any point in time. Keep it tight, necessary, evocative.

Abrazos,

Cristina