Exulansis — A Reason to Write. A Writing Cooperative and Literally…
By: Heath ዟ
Tags: Exulansis, The Writing Cooperative, Literally Literary, Ll Letters, Prompt

Open Writing Prompt 11/25/2019–12/25/2019

Exulansis — A Reason to Write

A Writing Cooperative and Literally Literary Contest

This prompt is open for poetry, fiction stories, and nonfiction stories (emphasis on ‘stories’) under 1500 words, from November 25th to December 25th.

Your prompt is ‘Exulansis’ —

n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it — whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness — which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

The word strikes so close to the heart of why so many people choose to express themselves through writing. How could we resist?

It is intentionally broad in its interpretation, as it’s an intensely personal concept. We only ask that you endeavor to let it speak through you with your best attempt to express it.

This prompt will run from November 25th — December 25th and submissions will be published as they come in (publication of last-minute submissions may be slightly delayed due to holidays, but we will get to them). We will be hosting the accepted submissions on our Prompts tab.

The entries will be reviewed by both The Writing Cooperative and Literally Literary to choose 1 poetry winner and 1 prose winner. The winners will receive a cool swag pack from The Writing Cooperative, a copy of From the Start: Literally Literary Anthology, Volume 1, and a guaranteed spot in the forthcoming Literally Literary Anthology, Volume 2!

In addition, both winners will be spotlighted at the top of our main page for two weeks.

Submission guidelines

All entries are subject to the existing Literally Literary guidelines. Entries not in compliance with these guidelines will be returned. Entrants may submit up to 2 pieces of writing as long as it is 1 piece of poetry and 1 piece of prose. If we receive multiple entries of the same type (e.g. 2 poems), we will consider the first and reject the rest. I would urge you prose writers to push yourself with poetry, and you poets to push yourself with prose writing. It’s like a gym workout for your writing skills. Entries must be under 1500 words. We’ll run prompts for longer prose pieces in the future, but this one has a 1500 word cap. All prose entries must stand on their own as a story whether fiction or nonfiction. Prose entries not meeting this requirement will be returned. Navel-gazing, philosophizing, preaching, self-help, listicles, and how-tos will all be returned. Tag your piece with exulansis. The other tags should be used as you normally do (i.e. tag poetry with ‘poetry’ and prose with ‘fiction’ or ‘nonfiction’, as appropriate, with the rest up to you). The piece must be subtitled “Literally Literary and The Writing Cooperative prompt.” Please submit drafts only. For this prompt, we will not be accepting previously published pieces. If you are already a writer, submit your entry to us the usual way. If you are new to LL, please submit your request to be added here: Request to be added as a writer to Literally Literary. Once your request has been accepted, you can submit your piece. Please do not reply to this post with your entry or a request to be added as a writer. Editors from Literally Literary and The Writing Cooperative may enter submissions but will exempt themselves from any contest recognition or prizes.

Regarding the distribution settings and the Medium Partner Program, we’re fine with your piece being eligible to make money and/or be curated by Medium. In the interest of including all of our readers, however, we will be including the ‘friends link’ in the promotion of these pieces. This should have minimal impact on your earnings and will not affect your eligibility to be curated.