SpoFest Prompts

Writing Prompt, Rough Draft and Exquisite Corpse

An open mic style event for poets, writers, spoken word artists, musicians, with the focus on creating literary works based on prompts.

You do not have to participate in the prompts and corpse segments. You can read your Original work instead!

When? 6-8:30PM CT Last Tuesday of the month

Where? Zoom and Facebook

These events are recorded live and are available to stream on-demand on our SpoFest Poetry and Prose Facebook page.
Watch the Rough Draft and Writing Prompt events here!

** We recently tweaked our event format some. Please refer to the section below entitled “event guidelines” to learn more about these changes. Thank you! **

There are four ways in which you can participate in the event: Writing Prompt, Rough Draft, reading/performing your original work, or Exquisite Corpse.

Please carefully read the following before signing up to participate. Thank you!

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Music performances welcome!!! (guitarists, pianists, etc.)

It’s mandatory that participants performing music use Zoom’s original sounds option. This will greatly enhance the quality of your audio. Please clikc on the link below for instructions for your particular device. Thank you.

Using and preserving original sound in a Zoom meeting

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1. Writing Prompt

* This is a written exercise which is to be completed before the start of the event.

You share (read out loud) your creative work during the event.

Writing Prompts for our June 27th event.

A. meet-cute — fulcrum — defenestrate

B. Write a funny “Dear John” letter.

Which writing prompt option inspires and motivates you to write? Choose one and get writing!

If you choose option A, your work must include, in some way, shape or form, the three words/phrases provided, and your work may be any genre or style of writing, fiction or nonfiction.

Whether you choose option A or B: 750 words or less (which equals five minutes reading time)

(You will read your writing prompt work during the first round).

2. Rough Draft

* This is a spoken exercise, not written.

How well can you spin the yarn? Get your improv on!!!

The Rough Draft exercise relies on you improvising your creative work without preparation. Telling a story on the fly. Make it serious or make it funny!

The host or co-host will provide you with a prompt chosen randomly from a list of prepared prompts.

You will have five seconds to gather your thoughts, think on how you want to begin telling your story, and then the timer begins!

You have up to two minutes to tell your story! When you hear the soft tone, your time is up. (You do not have to use all of your two minutes).

If you get stuck along the way, you can call out “help!” The host or co-hosts will attempt to help you get started again.

If you are unable to continue telling the story, you can end it by calling out “And the dragons ate them all!” (Thank you Cree Zadra!)

Who knows, you might like your story so much that you put it to paper, make a few edits, and publish it!!!

(Rough draft takes place in the second round).

3. Reading/performing your original work

Writing Prompt and Rough Draft not your thing? No problem!

You can still participate in the event by reading your original work instead: poetry, prose, or performing comedy, music, etc.

4. EXQUISITE CORPSE!

What is an exquisite corpse?!

An Exquisite Corpse is a compilation poem with each writer adding a line to a group constructed poem. The end result will either be mangled to pieces or a masterpiece! (this group exercise takes place during the event on Zoom)

Even if you’re not participating as a reader, you can still contribute to the Exquisite Corpse!

Resident Corpse Wrangler, Angela Yuriko Smith, will get each month’s exquisite corpse started by providing a line of poetry based on that month’s two writing prompt.

After you have finished your turn at reading/performing, the host or co-host will ask if you want to contribute a line of poetry. If you do, Angela will private message you THE LAST line in the poem.

You will not see the entire poem. This is the beauty of the Exquisite Corpse! You only see the last line contributed.

The line Angela sends to you in private will be prefaced by a # sign, a hash tag, so you will be able to pick it out from the rest of the scrolling chat in Zoom.

You then have around five minutes, the sooner the better, to PRIVATE MESSAGE Angela your line. The idea is for your line of poetry to have something to do with the last line. PLEASE no long-winded lines of poetry!!!

When you send your last line of poetry to Angela, PLEASE preface it with a # sign, a hash tag. e. g. # roses are red and violets are blue

If you do not send Angela your line of poetry in a timely manner, she will move on to the next contributor. She will however return to you during round 2. She will ask you at that time if you would still like to contribute.

PLEASE do not bombard Angela with too many messages during the event. Everyone will have a chance to contribute to the Exquisite Corpse. Thank you!!!

At the end of each event, Angela will read in order, all of the lines of poetry which were contributed by our writers.

Mangled to pieces or masterpiece, James Bryant and T. A. Niles will combines their artistic talents to “BRING TO LIFE!” each Exquisite Corpse with narration and music!

Click here to listen to and watch EXQUISITE CORPSE 5 31 22!

Event Guidelines

The order of reading is determined by the order of registration.

1st round: up to 5 minutes.

You can share your writing prompt creation, or read/perform your original work, or both.

2nd round: up to 2 minutes.

You can either participate in the rough draft segment or read/perform your original work. (one selection only)

(Rough draft participants will go last)

Any introductory/prefatory information is counted towards your time limit.

Estimate how long it takes to read out loud your work using this handy tool.
Read-O-Meter Tool

Make sure to show up on time if you have signed up to participate. Cancel your registration if you can’t make it.

For the best audio quality possible, we encourage readers to use a headset or lapel mic.

Find a quiet place to read.

Make sure Zoom is the only app running on your system during the event.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact the host.

Contact James on FB

Sign up to Participate!

Our events require that participants register with Zoom.

This is a security precaution to prevent Zoom bombings and other annoyances.

Provide your first and last name, your email address, and click on register.

You will receive a confirmation email which contains your join link for the event.

Keep this link in a safe place and do not share it with anyone.

Click here to register with Zoom for our June 27th SpoFest Writing Prompt, Rough Draft and Exquisite Corpse event!

Watch all of our SpoFest writing prompts events on Facebook!

Click here to watch! Live stream usually begins around 6pm CT.

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