ISBN Paper: 978-1632173478/ $17.95
Spruce Books, October 2020
(Sasquatch Books/Penguin RandomHouse)

Order: Bookshop / PenguinRandomHouse / Amazon

For review copies, desk copies, or promotional materials, contact Nikki Sprinkle, Director of Marketing & Publicity at Spruce Books: nsprinkle@sasquatchbooks.com

Work with award-winning poets Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown to develop your voice as a writer. Refined in classrooms around the country with students ranging from teens to senior citizens and everyone in between, these prompts are designed to get you writing.

Solidly grounded in the practice of awareness and writing though the body, this book will help deepen your self-awareness, your empathy for others, and your appreciation of your environment—inside and out. Many also contain quotes from some of today’s most exciting poets to inspire and guide you.

Praise

“Write It! is an absolute pleasure, a gentle, encouraging guide for discovering the stories around and within us. Jacobs and Brown serve as fairy godpoets, bringing us the words and wisdom of beloved writers along with prompts to inspire and embolden. This book asks us to be curious and open, to find ourselves in the mirror and on the page. It shows us how to eavesdrop on the world and our own hearts. “

—Janet McNally, The Looking Glass

“These soul-searching prompts inspire conversations with oneself, our world, and poets who have come before us. As a teacher and author, I’m equally excited about sharing this book with my students and diving in myself!”

—Nicole Kronzer, Unscripted

“Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown are two poets of presence, passion, and purpose. I am constantly learning from their brilliant poems and how they both inhabit the natural world around with them with immense light and graceful precision. This book of beautiful writing prompts is a safe space to explore the depths of your imagination, overflowing with favorite lines from beloved writers and soul-stirring questions. Write It! will help you deepen your writing practice as well as your relationship to identity, place, and community. Sometimes there is nothing more terrifying than a blank page or blinking cursor. Sometimes you need the right nudge and spark, these one hundred prompts are lit matches waiting for you.”

—Tiana Clark, I Can’t Talk About The Trees Without The Blood

"Write It! might be one of the friendliest poetry tool kits/notebooks ever. As the title suggests, the book is very direct. How do people write about feelings too difficult to face directly? Is listening to trees possible? Is that rain talking to me? How many names does any person really have? The editors—Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown, both fine poets themselves—make us feel lucky to sit at their table. They invite us in. . . . Readers will learn about writers and quotations, multiple perspectives, possibilities, and tactics while feeling deeply befriended all the way. Who knows where you might go? I plan to write on every page."

—Naomi Shihab Nye, The Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate, January 2021 Pick 

"If, poet, you were always suspicious of the efficacy of prompts as a poetic practice, then you need to prop open this sophisticated and deeply knowledeable collection of ideas and inspirations. There's nothing cute or precious about these hard-though and useful mind and heart starters. Jacobs and Brown bring an Asheville focus on nature and openness to the page." 

—Brian Lampkin, O. Henry Magazine

"In my work helping Montessori Middle Schools develop humanities curricula, I am always on the lookout for materials that foster independent work and independent thinking. Write It! is just such a resource. It can be used as a personal writing space/journal or as a collection of daily prompts for the classroom. For teachers the thematic arrangement of the sections, Who are You, Where are You, Who are Others and Where do we go From Here, make it easy to integrate writing practice into other parts of the curriculum. For example, the Who Are You section is easily adapted to use in social emotional lessons as well as anti-bias anti-racist discussions; while the Where are You section is a wonderful springboard to studies of local history and ecology. . . . Usually I avoid using collection of writing prompts in class because so many of them pre-suggest the kind of answers that can be given. This collection avoids that kind of sin, and remains open ended and wholistic. "

—Barbara Roether, Adolescent Guide/Consultant, Berkshire Montessori School