I am one of 20.9 million Americans living with a mood disorder.  In both my personal and professional experience, this can be a very challenging time of year for those who struggle with serious mental illness.

For November, I will be using the titles of memoirs and novels that explore life with mental illness for my daily writing prompts. To honor my own mental health and self-care needs, I will be posting the week’s prompts on Sunday mornings (instead of daily) on Brave and Reckless, Go Dog Go Café, and Heretics, Lovers, and Madmen.  I will provide links for the books used for the prompts in case you would like to explore the titles in greater depth.

Although these prompts are designed to inspire you to write a poem, prose piece, piece of flash fiction, or art in 30 minutes or less, I realize these prompts may be difficult for some readers. I sincerely apologize if any of the prompts are triggering for you.

As always, the only rule is that you use the book title as your piece title OR integrate all the words in the title into your piece somehow. 

If you would like to have your piece considered for publication on Brave and Reckless or Heretics, Lovers, and Madmen, please email your prompt-inspired pieces to me at her.red.pen.wordsmithing@gmail.com.