Week 1: Bradbury Trio Challenge

Tammy's Trio+: A Poem, A Story, An Essay, and a Prompt for you!

Welcome to 1/4 Bradbury Trio Challenges for January!

Each Sunday in January all subscribers receive a post with a poem, a story, an essay, and a writing prompt for you to try in response to these readings.

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The Bradbury Trio [reading a poem, an essay, and a story every day as prescribed by Ray Bradbury] fuels my writing.

This trio structure inspires me to write after I read.

Good Words In = Good Words Out

My wish for you is that the reading you engage in today leads you to writing that could not have been created otherwise!

Week 1 Trio:

Poem: Burning the Old Year Naomi Shihab Nye

This poem I come back to over and over.

Story: Procession by Kathy Fish

Essay: The Taste of Her Care

Writing Prompt:

As you are reading, create a list of WHAT IF questions that emerge as you are reading. They may have something directly related to the reading or it may relate more to a metaphor it arises for you. It may be linked to a memory.

Only after reading all three pieces and following this procedure, read the questions out loud and mark the ones with a star (or preferred icon) that feel that there is some heat there. Is there an idea that threads the three pieces together for you?

Choose one of the starred questions to write into and see what happens. Don’t worry about a structure. Just freewrite and see what comes. I bet you will find a surprise or two in there.

*******You are welcome to post your experience in the comments, but I discourage you from posting your writing as it is considered published. You are welcome to email me your piece directly if you want a layer of accountability!

Here is a fabulous essay that address the WHAT IF question with a bend to what I am proposing here. It is interesting and intriguing:

the things we almost do

Brianna Wiest has a great IG post full of WHAT IF questions.

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If you like this concept and it fuels you I invite you to join me for 4 weeks of the Bradbury Trio Course!

On Reading Week you receive 5 days of curated reading on Sunday.

During Writing week you respond to a prompt and share your writing with the class. Two other participants in addition to myself offer feedback.

We meet on Zoom three times.

1. An introductory call - It is easier to have more meaningful and worthwhile feedback when you are able to meet the people in the class you are sharing with.

2. A virtual meeting after the first writing week.

3. A celebration and wrap-up at the end of the 2nd writing week.

Registration is opening soon!

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A little more about me: Tammy L. Evans is a writer, teacher, and coach living in a tiny house on a peninsula with her husband and adventure cat. Her location device is her loud laugh. She is currently working on a short story collection. Her poetry has been published in The Storyteller, FoxGlove Journal, Story Hall, Blue Insights, The Partnered Pen, and others. Her fiction has been published in Gone Lawn, Cabinets of Heed, Spelk, Five on the Fifth, Clover and White, Fiction Berlin Kitchen, and others.