Writing prompt #35: GHOSTLY MATTERS

(Redux, for those who didn't receive it this morning!)

Hi Everyone,

I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book by sociologist Avery Gordon called GHOSTLY MATTERS, first published in the nineties. It’s about studying absences, and vague traces, the nature of hauntings, seeking fresh ways of knowing, and of finding the ‘there’ when history tells you it doesn’t exist. 

Gordon quotes Toni Morrison’s argument that “invisible things are not necessarily not-there” and gives a brilliant analysis of BELOVED, one of my all-time favorite novels. In short, Gordon asks readers: What can ghosts and hauntings tell us about silenced histories?

YOUR PROMPT:

Choose a ghost for your work-in-progress, someone whose life has been left out, distorted, or neglected by the living. Have the ghost return and haunt one particular person in absolutely specific ways. What does the ghost want? Why now? What would the ghost’s truth, if told, unleash? 

I’d be very curious to hear how this goes! Please feel free to post follow-ups.

Abrazos,

Cristina