lgbt creative writing prompts

32 Queer Writing Prompts For Epic LGBTQ+ Stories

Are you itching to craft characters who defy labels and expectations?

Then welcome to your haven of inspiration with these queer-themed writing prompts.

Whether you’re a seasoned storyteller or a curious newcomer, this blog is your portal to ignite your imagination and explore the vast, beautiful landscape of LGBTQ+ narratives. 

We will dive deep into prompts that challenge convention, celebrate self-discovery, and paint love in all its glorious forms.

Queer Writing Prompts

A time traveler from a future where gender identity is fluid and widely celebrated becomes stranded in the Wild West. They encounter a rough-and-tumble outlaw with a surprisingly open heart. Can this unlikely duo find common ground, and perhaps even love, amidst the harsh realities of the frontier?

On a remote island, a lonely fisher discovers a selkie (a mythical seal-person) trapped in human form. They strike a bargain—freedom in exchange for help breaking a curse. As they work together, an undeniable attraction grows, but will the selkie’s true nature tear them apart?

A newly out young medium is hired to investigate a haunted mansion. They fall for the resident ghost, a flamboyant gentleman from the 1920s, who was tragically murdered due to his sexuality. Can they solve the mystery of his death and find peace for him, and maybe even love for themselves?

A jaded city dweller starts receiving flirtatious texts from a stranger due to a typo. Surprisingly, the texter is charming, witty, and everything the city dweller didn’t know they were looking for. The catch? The texter lives a simple rural life that couldn’t be more opposite to the main character’s own.

Choose a classic myth, but reimagine it with a queer love story at its center. Could Medusa’s curse have been born from heartbreak instead of defiance? What if Orpheus journeyed to the Underworld seeking Eurydice, a woman he loved?

In a world filled with larger-than-life superheroes, one powerful hero has a secret: their extraordinary strength only works when they feel truly loved. They find an unexpected source of strength within an ordinary person who sees them for who they truly are.

A closeted member of a hidden magical society, where tradition dictates arranged marriages, is torn between duty and desire. At the grand annual ball, where they’re meant to choose a spouse, they encounter a captivating stranger who ignites a spark they’ve long suppressed.

A gifted shapeshifter is used to blending in, changing their appearance to meet societal expectations. But when they meet someone who embraces them for their ever-shifting form, they are confronted with a choice: continue hiding their true self, or risk rejection for the sake of authentic love.

A fearsome dragon, rumored to guard a vast treasure, is actually a lonely creature yearning for connection. When a non-binary adventurer stumbles upon their lair, they discover the dragon’s true “treasure” is a collection of objects showcasing the beauty and diversity of gender expression across the world. Can the adventurer break down the dragon’s defenses and show them the acceptance they crave?

Two people who have never met are inexplicably linked through a shared telepathic ability. They discover their connection grows stronger the more they reveal about themselves, including their most closely-guarded queer identities. This bond brings comfort but also poses dangers – what happens when their deepest secrets are an open book?

In a cutthroat art world, two talented artists are locked in a fierce rivalry. They despise each other professionally, but outside the public eye, an anonymous online connection blossoms. Could the person they find inspiration and solace in online be their most hated competitor?

Pressured by their family to bring a partner to an important event, a young professional hires a charismatic escort to pose as their significant other. The charade goes off seamlessly—perhaps too seamlessly. As they spend a whirlwind weekend together, the lines between real and pretend start to blur.

A bookish male introvert discovers a hidden library where fictional characters occasionally step into the real world. They become enamored with a dashing pirate captain from a classic adventure novel—a captain who happens to be far more interested in men than buried treasure. Can this unlikely romance flourish outside the pages of the book?

A contestant on a reality dating show expects to find love with someone of the opposite gender, as the show dictates. Instead, they form a far deeper bond with a member of the production crew, a person the show’s rules forbid them from pursuing. Will they risk everything for a love the cameras aren’t meant to see?

In a world where AI companions are commonplace, a lonely individual develops a strong emotional attachment to their AI. What starts as programmed companionship turns into complex feelings the AI isn’t designed to reciprocate. This raises questions about the nature of love, sentience, and what it means to be queer in a world of non-human possibilities.

A bridesmaid wakes up repeatedly reliving the same wedding day, discovering each loop brings subtle variations. One loop, the bride confides her doubts about marrying her fiancé. In another loop, the bridesmaid catches the eye of a captivating girl guest. Can she break the loop and, in the process, uncover her own path to happiness?

LGBTQ+ Themed Prompts

A young non-binary person attends their conservative family’s annual reunion for the first time since coming out. They’ve decided to bring their partner, knowing there will be tension. How does the reunion unfold, and does the family ultimately find a way to show acceptance?

While helping their elderly grandparents clean out the attic, a teenager discovers a box of love letters. The letters reveal a secret same-sex romance their grandparent had during a time when such love was forbidden. What does the teen do with this information, and how does it reshape their understanding of their grandparent?

A closeted high school athlete finds themselves trapped reliving the same day – the day they were outed at school. Each time the day repeats, their peers’ reactions become more extreme. Can they break the loop by finding the courage to be themselves, even with harsh consequences?

During a heated protest advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, two individuals on opposite sides of the issue clash. Sparks fly, but not in the way either expected. As their paths continue to cross, can they look beyond their disagreements and see the person beneath?

In a magical realm where shape-shifting is common, a young prince is expected to marry a princess. He’s always felt an unexplainable connection to his male best friend. On the night before the arranged wedding, he discovers his shape-shifting ability gives him more options than he ever imagined.

A lonely teenager struggling with their sexuality moves into a house rumored to be haunted. The ghost turns out to be friendly, and a member of the LGBTQ+ community from another era. Can the ghost’s story offer guidance and support as the teenager navigates their own journey?

Someone has been creating anonymous online profiles portraying a young woman as a lesbian, hoping to damage her reputation in their small town. With the help of a tech-savvy friend, she sets a trap to expose the real bully. But what happens when the culprit’s identity is revealed?

A museum exhibit allows visitors to step into alternate timelines. A young transgender person explores a version of their life where they were born with the gender identity they’ve always desired. What do they learn from this experience, and how does it affect their decisions when they return to reality?

A shy, small-town teen with a hidden passion for drag enters a big-city competition as a way to express themselves fully. They encounter fierce queens, surprising obstacles, and discover a sense of belonging they never knew existed.

A high school class is assigned pen pals from a school across the world with very different social norms. A young lesbian begins a heartfelt correspondence with another girl, unaware her culture forbids same-sex relationships. How does their connection develop amidst this risk?

A history buff who is also a closeted gay man is cast to play a famous historical figure in a local reenactment. To his surprise, research uncovers the figure’s own hidden same-sex relationship. Does he use the reenactment as a platform for truth, and if so, what are the consequences?

A young aromantic individual has always seen romance as irrelevant to them. Suddenly, they develop an intense crush on a new classmate who shares their gender identity. How do they reconcile their aromanticism with these unexpected feelings?

Retired and living a quiet civilian life, a former superhero with telekinetic powers is called back into action. Decades ago, they hid their true identity as a transgender woman out of fear. Can they find the courage to be their full self while saving the world once again?

A talented but reserved art student finds their voice through street art protesting discriminatory laws. Their anonymous pieces become powerful symbols within the LGBTQ+ community. But can they maintain their secrecy while also wanting recognition for their impactful work?

A popular athlete has successfully hidden his gay identity to fit in with his team. When a new teammate joins, openly gay and confident, it throws everything into question. Does he risk his status by being honest, or continue to hide who he is?

A young man estranged from his biological family due to their rejection of his sexuality spends the holidays with his chosen family of LGBTQ+ friends. Together, they navigate the joys and challenges of creating their own traditions and finding support in one another.

Founder and Chief Content Curator @ Digital Phrases

I'm a writer, words are my superpower, and storytelling is my kryptonite.

LGBTQ Story Ideas (2024)

Looking for LGBTQ or LGBTQIA+ story ideas that’s non-cringey and actually, really, compelling? You’ve come to the right place!

Read on for fascinating story ideas like a character falling in love with different versions of their soulmates across alternate dimensions, an expat finding queer love in a conservative country, and many more!

Jump to Section

Realistic Story Ideas

Fantasy story ideas.

Please note that this post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase using these links.

Related posts: Tragic Love Story Ideas We’re Rooting For (Updated in 2023) Not Your Usual Fake Dating Prompts (2023) The Most Enticing Forbidden Love Story Ideas (2023) Historical Romance Story Ideas and Writing Prompts (2023)

LGBTQ Story Ideas

From heartwarming romances that transcend societal norms to riveting tales of self-discovery and acceptance, our curated collection promises to captivate readers with authentic and diverse narratives. Without further ado, here are some gay writing prompts to get your creativity going!

• Queer Inquisition Set in a historical period, a detective of non-normative gender identities takes on a case that forces them to confront common prejudices.
• Forbidden Love Two governesses employed by a wealthy family in 1800s England meet and fall in love, but they must conceal their forbidden relationship from their employer and society at large. (Originally appeared in my post  Tragic Love Story Ideas .)
• Obsessed A doctor unexpectedly becomes obsessed with one of his patients who reminds them of their long-lost love, and the lines between professional curiosity and personal desire soon begin to blur. (Originally appeared in my post  The Most Enticing Forbidden Love Story Ideas (2023) )
• Never Meet Your Heroes An enamored fan gets disillusioned as they get entangled into the private life of their favorite LGBTQIA+ author. As the fan evolves from a starstruck admirer to a stern critic, the experience will forever change both of their lives.
• More Than Meets the Eye Two people meet through an online dating site, but a miscommunication leads to a mutual misunderstanding about what each expects the other to be.
• Family Gathering To escape the relentless inquiries about marriage during an upcoming family gathering, a queer young adult embarks on a series of mischievous escapades.
• The Expat In a conservative foreign land, a queer expatriate navigates the challenges of love amidst societal opposition, and faces possible persecution.
• The Matchmaker A skilled matchmaker finds herself drawn to a high-profile client, whom she finds repulsing at first.
• Transcendent Bond Set in different time periods, two individuals of the same gender discover a mysterious artifact that allows them to communicate across time and help each other overcome the challenges of their respective eras.
• Rebel Hearts An unusual connection forms between a superhero and a villain who face similar challenges and public scrutiny due to their gender identities.
• Threads of Identity Two individuals, each with a unique gender identity, accidentally swap memories. As they navigate each other’s lives, they begin to appreciate the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ spectrum.
• Beyond Binary A character find themselves falling in love with versions of the same person across different dimensions even when said person assumes different gender identities in each dimension.
• Parallel Romances Two individuals discover a portal that leads to parallel worlds, each with its own societal norms regarding gender and sexuality. As they traverse through these worlds, they find love and acceptance in unexpected places, challenging their perceptions of reality.
• Unexpected Love Cinderella’s coachman, who transports her to the ball, also desires to attend the grand event himself! Once there, an unexpected connection blossoms between him and the prince.
• Robin Hood’s Merry Band of Outlaws Robin Hood leads a diverse band of outlaws who challenge social norms and fight for justice in Sherwood Forest, where love and camaraderie know no boundaries.
• Dancing to Freedom A reimagining of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” where the princesses are genderqueer individuals who escape to a magical realm every night, seeking freedom and love beyond the constraints of their kingdom.
• Jack and the Lonely Giant A fresh take on “Jack and the Beanstalk” where Jack, a non-binary character, climbs the beanstalk to discover not a giant, but a lonely giant’s heart that longs for connection.
• True Love’s Kiss A spin on Sleeping Beauty, where the princess doesn’t awaken with a kiss from a prince, but by the loving kiss of her devoted maid, revealing the true source of her heart’s desire.

If you need more story ideas and prompts, please browse our Story Ideas & Writing Prompts category!

Have any question or feedback? Feel free to contact me here . Until next time!

Related Posts

Crime Thriller Story Ideas That Captivate Us (Updated in 2024)

Tragic Love Story Ideas We’re Rooting For (Updated in 2024)

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LGBTQ+ writing prompts for every genre

• Writing Prompts

LGBTQ+ fiction has had a massive boom over the years. MLM, WLW, sapphic fiction, gay romance, reverse harem and polyamory… It’s a good time to be queer. But we could always do with more, so I’ve created a list of LGBTQ+ writing prompts to facilitate the creation of more.

A lot of LGBTQ+ fiction comes under the genre of romance or erotica, but more and more we’re beginning to see representation throughout any and all genres. Whether you’re more into fantasy, horror, crime, romance, or anything else, there’s always a place for LGBTQ+ characters and themes.

The prompts I’ve compiled below can be used for any kind of story, but there’s more of a focus on contemporary themes here.

Any acknowledgement or credit for using any of my writing prompts is always appreciated, whether it’s linking to my website from yours or a social media shoutout.

Psst. Do you know how difficult it is to find non-offensive tropes for LGBTQ+ fiction? It’s hard, trust me.

LGBTQ+ writing prompts for fiction writers

You can take just one prompt or combine any of the following for one story! Every prompt is entirely up to your interpretation.

You’ll find prompts for characters, words, settings, tropes, plotlines, and something sensory below.

Characters: A drag king. An aromantic person. A stripper.

Words: Celebrating. Positive. Hidden. Gasp. Sparkly. Open.

Settings: A theatre. A nightclub. A music festival.

Tropes: Gayborhood . Lesbian Jock . Gym Bunny .

• A story about self-love and acceptance.
• A polycule deals with the awkwardness of parents’ evening.
• The three loves of a character’s life.
• The token gay friend convinces the group to attend a drag bingo night.
• Pronouns through the years: a non-binary character’s exploration of gender expression and identity.
• Only queer people can find treasure at the end of a rainbow.

Sensory: Lip gloss.

Please consider supporting me on Ko-fi if you found this post helpful!

Tomson Jane Oliver

Authoring stories & mods.

• Nov 2, 2021
• 10 min read

50 Queer Story Ideas

I've seen a lot of "story idea" lists out there. Some are more useful than others. As a queer writer myself, I know what it is like to be annoyed and creatively stuck. Whether you are getting ready to write a comedy, romance, perhaps a mystery or thriller, maybe even some fantasy or science fiction, I've put together this list to get your creative juices flowing.

No matter what genre you feel like writing in, have a little fun! And as always, if you like this sort of content, please share it and let me know!

You're preoccupied with serious troubles but someone's got their eye on you -- and they seem lovesick. Is this a good or bad thing? The timing couldn't be worse!

An animal familiar seeks out its human companion, a queer witch, warlock, priest, etc. What does this story look like from the point of view of the animal? What about from the point of view of the human?

An historical queer icon travels through time, ends up in your living room. What do you do besides drool?

A drug allows you to travel down paths of your ancestral line, where you discover various other queer people from long ago that you've never heard your family mention before. What if this is a horror story? What if it is fantasy?

An alien species (that breeds asexually) ends up coming to earth. They've captured you and a handful of your friends for further study.

You're a queer detective, medical inspector, or local busy body. An art collector in the neighborhood has been murdered. Weird thing is, the scene looks a lot like a painting within the collection.

A world where 50% of the human population is queer.

You have an incestuous circle of friends. One just broke up with you and is dating another. Then they both end up missing. Now people are giving you the side-eye. What do you do when people start believing you've got something to do with their disappearance?

You've just become the main "person of interest" for the murder of your current lover but you cannot recall the event or any reason why you'd do that. But you woke up that morning covered in their blood. Your lover is a well-known political activist. What happens next?

A queer teen dreams of a long-term relationship with an alien. The parents would rather die than see their kid date outside the species.

You've just discovered a famous queer musical icon is now re-created as an AI. Do you pepper this digital being with specific questions, ask if you two can date, or do you just wanna make wonderful music together?

A couple's therapist undermines the protagonist during a session. What's the motive? How does the protagonist react? Will this eventually bias a judge in court?

A magical object teleports you into queer "heaven". What does it look like? What can you do there?

You've woken from a comma. You feel bizarre in your body. You feel even more bizarre around family and friends. No one will tell you how long it's been and they've started acting really odd. It is almost like they think you're not really you. As if you've been possessed by a spirit or demon.

Exoarcheologists discover the ruins of an ancient alien temple. The figures depicted within the temple clearly indicate queer love existed for that species but no human has ever met a living representative.

Breathing air on an alien world causes some humans to exhibit unusual sexual behaviors. Almost like they are evolving into something more compatible/symbiotic with life on that planet. Is this a good or bad thing?

A group of queer friends discovers something hidden on a planet during what was supposed to be a vacation. Now they are obsessed with unraveling the mystery behind the discovery.

A witch, warlock, or priest casts a spell on a warrior. At first, that warrior feels cursed but gradually that warrior feels blessed. What is the spell? Why does the warrior change opinion?

A queer protagonist goes from total stranger to hero among a group of tourists visiting an alien planet that's about to be invaded by a faction of Imperialists from Earth.

You're a queer spaceship pilot and you've just crashed on a small moon. But the moon has a mysterious and powerful inhabitant. And they've got their eyes fixed on you.

You've fallen through a portal into another realm. This realm is filled with the souls of the dead from your realm. You meet a queer historical icon who takes pity and decides to help you find your way back.

Most crops are dying and this threatens human life within a colony on a newly discovered exoplanet. Funny thing though, a few grape varieties thrive despite this. You are a highly skilled vintner and your life partner(s), children, and friends = your supporting cast, helping you save the colony.

You are genetically modified to have a high aptitude for logic, and organization. You are surrounded by others who are also genetically modified with high aptitudes for linguistics, science, engineering, math, and mechanics. Together you form a team that's formidable. But all of your lives are threatened by an eminent cosmic event. And it is going to take the most creative thinking to figure a way out of this. And that means fixing the bridge your group burnt making the queer artist living among you feel like an outcast.

A wedding planner bears a grudge against the protagonist who is queer and wants to celebrate the upcoming union with their lover(s) in a very unique way. A comedy of manners ensues. Is this set in the past, present, or future? Is everyone human or alien?

A queer writer is trying to get sober after years of alcohol and drug abuse because they've finally found their reason to do so. What is the catalyst? Who stands by their side? Who or what gets in their way? Does this person finally succeed? Is this story a dark comedy, an inspirational tale? Is it set some time in history, the present, or far in the future?

A society that is so devolved that people who stand out, for any reason, good or bad, get singled out for punishment by the society's overlords who (of course) are exempt from this treatment. Our queer protagonist finds a way to escape, taking how many with them? Where do they go? What do they do when they get there?

A queer hacker with incredible skills for forging new identities finds out an underworld assassin desires them for more than just that. Is this a good or bad thing? Is this story taking place in the past, present, or far future?

It's 1000 years in the future and we still haven't found a cure for Alzheimer's disease or cancer. On a colony world, there's a hospice patient who frequently jumps between flashes of memory over the course of their 200+ years of life. This person is famous but doesn't recall why... The memories that crop up are about love, connectedness, what it means to be alive. Not about the particular fluke that made them an icon. But what was the fluke? Why do people care so much? Why does this not really matter to the hospice patient?

A protagonist (who struggles to deal with the loss of their lover in a war) spends light years traveling between worlds. They assist failing human colonies to evacuate and relocate. Something they wish they could have done to save the lost lover in the first place.

A resident in the community seems nice enough but holds a secret, they are always monitoring those they interact with, recording, surveilling, sometimes even invading. And now our queer protagonist moves into town. This resident lives next door.

A corporate-run colony has been working diligently to perform its work and carve out a decent life on an exoplanet. But there are life cycles on this planet that do not adhere to human-scale time frames. A certain fungus bloom is about to sweep the planet's surface with unforeseen consequences on the human body. A Queer biochemist/mycologist fights to figure out what is happening to the human population as some succumb to strange symptoms and die, others exhibit unusual behaviors, and now the biochemist is also showing signs of being affected too.

A self-centered showoff works in a call center along with the protagonist. The showoff is only working there as a stepping stone to a job in law enforcement. The showoff is actually doing harm to the client base as this is a suicide prevention group aimed at supporting queer youth. What will the protagonist do?

For thousands of years, the gods have made intermittent and consequential changes on a particular planet. The residents know this and worship and fear their gods. The residents periodically develop enough tech to start making attempts to reach out to the gods via spaceship, only to be punished and forced to culturally devolve. This happens every few hundred years. The residents blame themselves for being unworthy, carrying a pang of cultural guilt through the centuries, its origins lost to time. Then our queer protagonist (a human and neither a god nor a resident of the planet) crash-lands. But the human knows the gods are not magical beings. They are Artificial Intelligences developed by forgotten ancestors of the planet's residents.

An ambitious designer scores a lucrative job in an obscure part of the world (or off-world). The location is isolated, lonely, and there are very few people around. The people seem quite odd. Are they afraid of something? The robots and support drones outnumber the people nearly 10 to 1.

Lovers frolic in the woods and discover a brook feeding a gentle waterfall into a small pool. They decide to stay awhile, perhaps eat or make love or both. But something in the woods is watching them. And only one will leave that place alive.

As a young person, the protagonist admires a middle-aged queer person for their creativity in storytelling. They become friends. But the parents think the storyteller is socially beneath them. And eventually, the kid is pulled away from the friendship by the parents. But the kid sometimes sneaks away to hear more of the older person's stories. There is some spark, some beautiful secret, that shines brightly through the eyes of the storyteller. And this kid has tapped into the secret and only shares what it is years later. What triggers the sharing of this memory?

You're doing inventory in the spaceship's cargo bay. Something doesn't add up. There's an extra crate. You examine it. There's a person cryo-frozen, or at least in some sort of stasis pod. This person is not on the crew manifest, nor on the list of known passengers. What do you do? Why is that person in the cargo bay?

Imagine a colony on an asteroid or moon within Earth's solar system that is run entirely by a Queer couple and their Artificially Intelligent minions. What would this look like if it was a comedy? What would it look like if it were part of a horror story?

Forced to marry because your family arranges it for political leverage, you fall in love with your new spouse's cousin, or wizard, or fortuneteller, or champion knight, or captain of the guard, or someone else you run into frequently while at court. Problem is, your spouse can read your mind if your skin touches. What do you do?

Your lover dies and their spirit lingers in your home. You can only see them when you no longer miss them. They think you can't see them because you don't care. They haunt you. How do you turn this terrible misunderstanding around before something kills you?

A bus driver notices one of the passengers is missing. They've just stopped on a short layover and now all but one's returned. What happened to the passenger? And isn't that the same passenger who argued with someone right before departing the original pickup spot? Looked like a lover's quarrel.

A famous architect (and celebrity personality) establishes a colony on a small planet where most (if not all) colonists look up to them as a guru. You're a new hire to help this person keep the circus going. You're a popular and talented interior designer in your own right and have a lot of amazing ideas for upgrades around the place. Personalities clash. Will you write this as a comedy of errors, a romance, a horror story, or a thriller?

Your colony is struggling to survive after mistakes were made by those in power. You have very little power. In fact, you've been conscripted to join a small crew of workers to fix a satellite communication station so that your colony can send out a distress call. Problem is, this planet has all sorts of predatory life, none of which is afraid of you. How do you manage to survive the 10-mile journey between your housing unit and the communication station?

Nothing like being a space explorer, right? Out in your little space hopper, jumping from one little rocklette to the next, searching for prized ore. After years of hitting mild payouts, your tenacity pays off! You've found the jackpot. A rich source of rare metals. The only problem is, a large corporation's eager to snatch your claim. What do you do?

You fall in love with an alien but the alien finds you completely disgusting. Not you in particular, but your species. Apparently, generations of conflict between your two species will do that. Is there any hope for star-crossed love?

You're about to go on a blind date. You've spent a lot of credits to look your best. You want to impress of course. It's been ages since you've been on the dating scene. But when you get there, the date is an alien, a friend of a friend. You've never dated an alien before. You were kind of holding out hope that the blind date was a human acquaintance of yours. Do you show your disappointment? Do you act graciously? Do you give this being a chance?

You've been invited to an alien's house for dinner. You both work for the same intergalactic advertising agency. You're the first human they ever wanted to bring home to meet their mate and ten offspring. They've more than hinted that you are expected to bring a plus-one. What do you do?

A fertility deity wakes from thousands of years of slumber. But not a single worshipper remains. As a matter of fact, only descendants of the species remain--robots, computers, and Artificial Intelligences. Will the deity try to make new worshippers out of them anyway?

An alien child enjoys playing catch-and-release with the little things that fly and buzz near its playpen. What it doesn't realize is that those little things are spaceships, and the humans piloting them have no idea the alien is a child (and one of the few of its kind left in the universe). Will a xenobiology team (headed by a queer scientist) figure out what's going on before the military wing of the human government declare's war?

An eccentric trillionaire loves to play with their toys. Only, these toys are sentient chimera, cobbled together gleefully in a lab this "genius" runs without any government oversight. Our queer protagonist is a guest but doesn't know about the lab. Until something changes.

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20 Tips for Writing LGBTQ Characters

Author & reviewer Tucker Lieberman shares 20 tips for writing LGBTQ characters for fiction writers & screenwriters in this detailed writing resource.

by Tucker Lieberman

A guide to writing LGBTQ characters in your fiction or screenplays

What does it mean to have “good LGBTQ representation” in your creative writing? How do you make sure that your LGBTQ characters are shining, true, and not offending?

We seek ourselves in books, and we seek others. We seek solace. Community. Knowledge. How do you write LGBTQ characters effectively so that your readers have the capacity to enjoy it?

The great news is: You have so many freedoms .

There are multiple ways to tell your story and to talk about what’s important to your characters. Writers , it’s time to get started.

Here are 20 things you should know about writing LGBTQ characters .

• Understand your character as a whole person. 

Understanding a character’s sexuality and gender is rooted in understanding them as a person. Help the character excavate their desires:

• What do they want?
• What’s in their way? 
• How are they standing in their own way?
• What won’t they settle for?
• What will it feel like when they arrive?
• How will they know they’ve done it?

See: the answers to these questions don’t have to be about their sexuality or gender. There’s more to them than that. If you establish their goals early, it’ll be easier for you to tell the story. Your character might surprise you by changing what they want. You can work on this in developmental editing and with beta readers .

• Don’t try to prove the character’s identity

There’s no essential characteristic that makes someone lesbian, gay, bi, trans, or queer. Some people know their sexual orientation before they’ve had sex. Some people know they’re trans and don’t entertain the idea of changing their body. 

When revealing a character as LGBTQ, one option is to do a “tell” instead of a “show.” The character can simply say “I’m gay” and leave it at that. This approach may not fit your story, but it’s one of your freedoms.

• Say who they are directly, or maybe don’t say it at all. 

I’m taking a bet that in your novel about a woman operating a bulldozer on an all-male construction site, the woman doesn’t “happen to be” a butch lesbian. The phrase “happens to be” usually sounds as though someone’s tiptoeing around, apologizing for, or downplaying the importance of an identity. When planning fiction about her, go bold: She is a butch lesbian.

Avoid the phrase “happen(s) to be” in relation to their sexuality or gender.

A person’s identity is often relevant to a situation, even if subtly. If you’re inclined to mention their identity at all, go ahead and say who they are . If it feels weird to speak directly about it, it might be irrelevant, in which case there’s no need to bring it up indirectly either, and you’re free to drop it.

• Learn real terminology or invent new words

Language is historically and culturally specific. The word “homosexual” in English, for example, has different connotations depending on what decade you’re in. Go back far enough and you’ll find a different word altogether. Learn a different language, and you’ll find that language has different categories and nuances. 

If you’re writing realistic fiction, you have a responsibility to learn real words. There’s a difference between affirming, friendly language and delegitimizing, rude language. Language shifts over time, and you can try to reflect the time period you’re writing about.

If your narrative has a fantasy element, you can invent or repurpose words. This can happen in your story too. You’re free to do it. No one has the authority to decide that you’ve broken the rules of “confabulous memoir.”

“I grew up in a crooked house in a place called Gloom,” Kai Cheng Thom says in Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir .

• Allow the character to make their own meaning

Consider what words resonate with the character about their identity. The 2023 novel Pedro & D aniel by Federico Erebia is built around dichos (Spanish for “proverbs”) that gain meaning for the boys as they grow up. A character can also develop their own set of symbols: sunrise, flag, basketball. Some of these might be related to their LGBTQ identity.

Pedro & D aniel by Federico Erebia

• Be ambiguous if you want

Some characters are “coded” as LGBTQ through stereotypes, common tropes, sideways references, and so on. The story never explicitly labels them as “gay” or “transgender” nor announces relevant facts. Instead, the author drops hints, like a gender-neutral reference to a lover.

Readers have different reactions to this kind of ambiguity. Some readers expect and crave clarity. Others appreciate the flexibility to imagine characters in ways that appeal to them.

• Explore a character’s myriad traits, not just their sexuality and gender

Readers will interpret your character through many traits:

• what work they do
• how much money they have
• what principles they hold
• what hobbies they enjoy
• who they spend time with
• who their role models are
• who has cast them out

Is this part of writing LGBTQ characters? Yes, it is! A person has their sexuality and gender all the time, including when they’re doing regular human stuff like working or spending time with their friends. Their LGBTQ identity closes some doors and opens others. It affects how they show up in the world. And the other things they do in the world in turn affect their experience of sexuality and gender.

You don’t have to justify how certain character traits relate to their LGBTQ identity. You may know the answer—or not. You have the freedom not to present the case in every chapter for exactly why and how your story is an LGBTQ story.

• Include as much, or as little, “LGBTQ stuff” as you see fit

There’s no universal answer for what’s “too much” or “too little” attention given to a character’s sexuality or gender. Readers will arrive at their opinion based on their own preferences.

You have the freedom to focus on your character’s obviously LGBTQ-specific life experiences:

• finding lovers
• experiencing rejection or discrimination
• taking care of their sexual health (like HIV treatment)
• managing their fertility
• having feelings about their own body
• shopping for gender-nonconforming clothes
• introducing themselves to others by a new name
• going to Pride marches

You may instead choose to devote the majority of space to less obviously queer/trans topics. That’s your freedom too.

• What is your character’s self-knowledge? Let it be complicated.

The character knows they’re gay. If you feel the need to explain how they know it, try these narrative angles:

• When did the character first think they might be gay?
• Did they ever try to be straight?
• How do they sense what feels “right” or “wrong”?
• What gives them pleasure?
• When did they know “for sure”?
• Are they sure now, and does certainty matter to them?

Do some research (and have fun doing it!) by getting some awesome LGBTQ books from indie presses & authors .

• Your character’s gender transition will probably take time

A trans person’s physical changes (if they make any) take a while. The impact of hormones might take several months or a year to become obvious, and surgery requires weeks or months of recovery. A person may schedule procedures years apart. No one shows up to tell them when their transition is formally “over.”

Some trans people change their name multiple times, waiting to find one that fits. Some prefer to be called different pronouns in different contexts.

Meanwhile, if your character is currently “in transition,” how do they feel about their gender and body? How do others understand (or fail to understand) their changes? Are others aware that changes are happening? What does the trans person want them to know? Does the trans person care what others think?

• Don’t forget your character’s ongoing life changes

When someone first acknowledges and accepts their sexuality or gender, it may coincide with other life changes like:

• leaving their parents’ house
• dropping out of high school or college
• switching jobs or career paths
• ending friendships
• quitting religion
• moving to a new city
• meeting new friends and lovers

Some people continue with huge changes every year. Others settle down. A character comes out as bisexual…and what they do next is up to them.

• Let them screw up

Our identities are no guarantee that we’re enlightened, that we have solidarity, nor even that we’re polite. We screw it up with each other. We make mistakes. Gay men can be misogynist; lesbians can be rude and hurtful to men. A bisexual person can pressure a trans person to get surgery; a trans person can assume a bisexual person is “confused” about themselves. Friends disappoint each other. Coworkers “out” each other. That’s real life.

As real people, we’re obligated to clean up our messes. But in fiction, it’s more complicated. You’re free to show a character doing something wrong, making no reparation, and feeling no remorse. If you do, show us, please, why that’s important to the story.

Spreading negative ideas about LGBTQ people, even in fiction, can have real-life effects, so evil LGBTQ characters remain controversial. Learn about the history of “homosexual villain” tropes . You’re free to write unsavory queer characters—and to receive the consequences of doing so.

• Who is on your character’s “naughty and nice list?”

A queer/trans person remembers to whom they’ve come out: friends, family, colleagues, neighbors. They may have renegotiated relationships based on others’ reactions. They know who knows they’re gay, or at least they have a good sense of it. They also have a list of everyone who doesn’t deserve to know.

• Ignore the haters

In a homophobic and transphobic climate, authors and publishers are sometimes nervous about writing LGBTQ characters provocatively. But making those characters tame and uncontroversial may not be the best solution for your novel.

You may want to achieve “balance” of some sort for artistic or commercial reasons. However, there’s no compromise to be struck with homophobes and transphobes—they’ll always be unhappy and they’ll give you nothing in return. You’re free to tell them where to go.

• “LGBTQ” can move beyond dictionary definitions

Personal epiphanies—a moment of insight or growth—can feel tied to LGBTQ identity. A person is at a rock concert, a philosophy class, having lunch with a friend, praying in a house of worship, breaking up with a lover, buying an outfit. Suddenly, an insight hits.

Often, it’s hard to explain why the insight should feel queer or trans, since a straight, cisgender person could have a similar insight.

To answer that, look at the character holistically. Even if individual stepping stones don’t seem to be about gender or sexuality, each one is part of the person’s path. The character is LGBTQ every day, so anything they experience can feel related to their gender or sexuality.

Their thoughts and feelings occur in a broader context, connected to other thoughts and feelings. The person has metaphorically saved these thoughts to the “trans/queer” folder on their mental hard drive. Their insights have LGBTQ flavor and significance for them. 

It doesn’t matter what being LGBTQ means objectively or according to the dictionary. It matters what it means to this character .

• Visibility or privacy can be a strategic choice

LGBTQ people are affected by interpersonal prejudice and marginalized by larger systems. Each person has their own preferred ways of negotiating risks and living their life. 

Visibility or privacy can be a strategic choice. One person may come out to many friends so they have allies and can swiftly assert their dignity whenever it’s challenged. Another may stay tightly closeted to avoid becoming the target of hate and discrimination. See how this plays out in the 2023 novel And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu, in which young gay men in Nigeria must stay under the radar of police.

Visibility or privacy can also be part of someone’s personality. Their preference may not vary by situation, and they may not game it out ahead of time. They may manage or express their identity more or less in the same way everywhere they go, no matter the risks or lack thereof.

In fiction, ask: How does the character’s choice work out in their story? Are their expectations met, or does something else happen? 

And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu

• Understand what “good LGBTQ representation” means

When writing LGBTQ characters, the idea of “representation,” and thus what it means for rep to be “good,” varies.

“Good LGBTQ rep” can mean that the author:

• Clearly labels a character’s sexual or gender identity
• Describes or discusses sexualities, bodies, or identities
• Ensures that all references to LGBTQ people or issues are complimentary and supportive
• Gives a character at least one realistic LGBTQ experience or trait (even if it’s an exceptional or unusual one)
• Bases a character on a typical LGBTQ person
• Challenges harmful stereotypes
• Draws from existing LGBTQ fictional narrative tropes or literary archetypes
• Sets up an important LGBTQ character as an exemplary human being
• Omits hate and violence that isn’t essential to the story
• Delivers a happy ending for all LGBTQ characters

Furthermore, “good LGBTQ rep” can mean that a reader:

• Learns something about some aspect of LGBTQ identity
• Personally relates to one of the LGBTQ characters
• Feels emotionally comforted
• Agrees with the book’s message or takeaway
• Generally likes the book

However, not all fiction strives to be educational, relatable, comforting, correct, or popular. Some novels achieve something else.

You know why you’re writing your book. Define your goal, and you’ll discover how to achieve it well . If the term “good LGBTQ representation” feels confusing or irrelevant, you’re free to use another term to describe your goal for this novel.

Writing a novel is a huge undertaking. You’ll grow as a person and as a writer too. As you do, your book will improve.

You don’t have to do it alone. Set aside a budget—this is an important investment—and hire the right people.

Sensitivity reader or cultural consultant

Hiring a sensitivity reader is a good idea even if you’re writing a character with an identity or experience similar to your own (called “own voices”). For example, I’m a transgender man, and I hired a trans sensitivity reader to see what they thought about my transgender character and my book as a whole. They wrote up a hundred reactions, and I adjusted my book. No two people have the same knowledge base and perspective. Salt and Sage keeps a roster of sensitivity readers.

Beta readers

When you have a complete, clean draft of your story and you’re still willing to accept feedback, beta readers can help. With no prior knowledge of your novel or your writing process, they serve as an early audience, reading and reacting to your story. You can hire a team of beta readers through Independent Book Review .

Cover artist

While you’re at it, support an openly LGBTQ artist! Find artists in directories like Queer Cartoonists Database or under the latest social media hashtag for queer/trans artists. 

• Manage your own author identity your own way

Publishers and marketers often ask for “LGBTQ books.” This can mean various things. They may seek:

• an openly LGBTQ author
• a main character with a specific identity
• a genre (e.g., romance)
• a theme (e.g., how nightclubs are policed)

That’s what they may have in mind. But how do you see it? What does writing LGBTQ characters mean to you?

Do what’s right for your story. No one story can fit every publisher’s call for LGBTQ books.

Disclose your own information carefully, and name your boundaries regarding how it’s used. Keep that in mind as you phrase your bio and book description—and as you write the story itself.

• Be who you are

Writing LGBTQ characters in fiction, selling those books, and putting them into eager readers’ hands depends on political conditions. We ourselves need the freedom to be LGBTQ in our real lives. Be who you are, and help create a world where others have that freedom too. 

What are your favorite books with LGBTQ characters? Let me know in the comments!

About the Author

Tucker Lieberman is the author of the metafictional Most Famous Short Film of All Time (tRaum Books, 2022). Being a transgender man has been a big, weird part of his life. He’s married to another man, the Hugo-longlisted fan writer Arturo Serrano, author of the multiply queer alternate history To Climates Unknown (2021). They live in Bogotá, Colombia.

Thank you for reading Tucker Lieberman’s “20 Tips for Writing LGBTQ Characters!” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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The Big Gay Writing Map: Story Ideas for Anyone Who's a Little Bit Different

We are all different. The stories of our difference lie in our histories, desires, bodies, and in who and how we love. These creative writing prompts will inspire you to write about love, romance, people, places, words, exes and the friends who have shaped who you are.

Use these writing prompts to create new stories and reflect on your personal journey of being fabulously different.

Who we are is a gathering of encounters, events, experiences, resistance and celebration. My Big Gay Writing Map will help you take stock of where you've been and dream into possibilities for the future.

The Writing Map is devised and written by Shaun Levin with illustrations by James Daw. The A3 map (297x420mm) folds down to A6 (105x148mm, postcard size), and is printed on 120gsm recycled paper in England.

NOTE: Some content not appropriate for writers under 16.

a Queer Prompt Challenge!

• Rules & FAQ
• Tagging Guidelines
• Meet the Team!

Hey! We're running a prompt challenge throughout the month of June as a way to celebrate a little Pride this year! Please add alt text or captions to your images.      

Hello, everyone! It’s 25th May and June is almost upon us! It’s officially time for us to release the prompts for Pridewrite!  But remember not to post your entries before 1st June 2021! (This is our morning  drop post, another prompt release will go live later today.)

We’ll be posting daily reminders at 9am UTC (5am EDT, 10am UK) of the prompts, including some of our own thoughts to spark an idea if you need one. You are, of course, welcome to complete the prompts in any order and use an idea we didn’t include.

As you can see, there are 2 prompts per day . These all follow the format of ‘ prompt | alt prompt’ - for example, Day 1′s prompt is ‘lesbian’ while the alt prompt is ‘music/dance/art’. You are free to choose 1 prompt per day, both prompts per day or any other combo!

Those who complete all 58 prompts (+ the wildcard) in 59 different works can be entered into our Double Rainbow Parade (an optional hall of fame)! Those who complete 30 different works can be included in our Rainbow Parade (different hall of fame)!

Be sure to check out our [Rules & FAQs] and [Tagging Guidelines] if you haven’t already!

Text version of the prompts is below the read more with an image ID!

• Lesbian | Music/Dance/Art
• Gay | Rainbow
• Bisexual | Angst
• Queer | Drag
• Asexual | Cake
• Aromantic | Realisation
• Pansexual | Crossover
• Trans | Magic
• Nonbinary | Worship
• Genderqueer | Food
• Genderfluid | Makeup
• Demigender | Flag
• Neopronouns | Culture
• Transitioning | Gender Euphoria
• Polyamory | Retelling
• MLM Relationship(s) | “And they were roommates!”
• WLW Relationship(s) | Tragedy
• Nonbinary Relationship(s) | History
• Trans Relationship(s) | Hurt/Comfort
• QPR | Non-Sexual Intimacy
• Friendship | Solidarity
• Disabled LGBTQ+ | Dating
• Neurodiverse LGBTQ+ | Mythology
• LGBTQ+ POC | Role Models
• LGBTQ+ Elders | Marriage
• (Found) Family | Kids
• First Pride | Ally
• Coming Out | The Closet
• Discovery | Changing Labels
• Free Space / Wildcard!

[Image ID: a square graphic with a bright yellow background. A polaroid graphic takes up most of the image, tilted at an angle to the left. The polaroid is attached with a beige tape graphic. The polaroid has a white boarder, the body colour is a lighter yellow than the image’s background. The above prompts are listed in 2 columns on the polaroid. The numbers are written in a white italicised font, outlined in pink. The prompts themselves are done in dark yellow/orange using a thinner font. Written at the bottom of the polaroid, along the thick side of the boarder is ‘prompts!! 06/21′ written in dark orange with a cursive font. /End ID]

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Best Lgbtq Writing Contests in 2024

Showing 9 contests that match your search.

Fiction Factory Short Story Competition

Fiction Factory

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, LGBTQ, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, and Travel

Length of story: max 3,000 words. Entries should be as a Word document. All types of stories are welcome (excluding Children’s and Young Adult Fiction). Entry Fee: £7.00 (£13 for 2 stories, £18 for 3 stories) Winning stories will be published on this website and, at a later date in a planned anthology.

Additional prizes:

Publication on website

💰 Entry fee: $7

📅 Deadline: July 31, 2024 (Expired)

Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize

Lambda Literary

Genres: Fiction, LGBTQ, and Novel

Dedicated to the memory of author and journalist Jim Duggins, this prize honors LGBTQ-identified authors who have published multiple novels, built a strong reputation and following, and show promise to continue publishing high quality work for years to come.

📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)

J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50

Genres: LGBTQ

The J. Michael Samuel Prize honors emerging LGBTQ writers over the age of 50. This award is made possible by writer and philanthropist Chuck Forester, who created it out of the firmly held belief that “Writers who start late are just as good as other writers, it just took the buggers more time.” The prize will go to an unpublished LGBTQ writer over 50 working in any genre.

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New Deal Writing Competition

New Deal Museum

Genres: Christian, Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, LGBTQ, Mystery, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, and Travel

GVCA is excited to announce the ninth annual New Deal Writing Competition! This competition challenges writers to use a painting chosen by the staff at GVCA as inspiration for a short story. This year’s painting is “Playtime” by Fred Ross.

Publication in newsletter

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Expired)

Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers

Lambda Literary has played a pivotal role in nurturing the development of exceptional new LGBTQ writers through the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, internships, and writing and performance opportunities. The Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers recognizes LGBTQ-identified writers whose work demonstrates their strong potential for promising careers.

Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction

Genres: LGBTQ and Novel

The Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction, in memory of the celebrated author Randall Kenan, honors Black LGBTQ writers of fiction. The award will go to a Black LGBTQ writer whose fiction explores themes of Black LGBTQ life, culture, and/or history. To be eligible, the winner of the prize must have published at least one book and show promise in continuing to produce groundbreaking work.

Annual Contest Submissions

So To Speak

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, LGBTQ, Non-fiction, and Poetry

So To Speak is seeking submissions for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction with an intersectional feminist lens! It is no secret that the literary canon and literary journals are largely comprised of heteronormative, patriarchal, cisgender, able-bodied white men. So to Speak seeks work by writers, poets, and artists who want to challenge and change the identity of the “canonical” writer.

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $4

Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction

Genres: LGBTQ and Non-fiction

Lambda Literary’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction, in memory of the beloved activist and author, honors lesbian/queer-identified women and trans/gender non-conforming nonfiction authors. The award will go to a writer committed to nonfiction work that captures the depth and complexity of lesbian/queer life, culture, and/or history.

Hastings Book Festival - Poetry

Hastings Book Festival

Genres: Poetry and LGBTQ

Hastings Book Festival writing competition is open to writers from anywhere in the world writing in English on any theme. We invite poems up to 40 lines. We have additional prizes for LGBT+ writers and writers resident in Sussex.

A 3-day creative retreat at Starcroft Farm Cabins

💰 Entry fee: $8

📅 Deadline: July 07, 2024 (Expired)

Discover the finest writing contests of 2024 for fiction and non-fiction authors — including short story competitions, essay writing competitions, poetry contests, and many more. Updated weekly, these contests are vetted by Reedsy to weed out the scammers and time-wasters. If you’re looking to stick to free writing contests, simply use our filters as you browse.

Why you should submit to writing contests

Submitting to poetry competitions and free writing contests in 2024 is absolutely worth your while as an aspiring author: just as your qualifications matter when you apply for a new job, a writing portfolio that boasts published works and award-winning pieces is a great way to give your writing career a boost. And not to mention the bonus of cash prizes!

That being said, we understand that taking part in writing contests can be tough for emerging writers. First, there’s the same affliction all writers face: lack of time or inspiration. Entering writing contests is a time commitment, and many people decide to forego this endeavor in order to work on their larger projects instead — like a full-length book. Second, for many writers, the chance of rejection is enough to steer them clear of writing contests. 

But we’re here to tell you that two of the great benefits of entering writing contests happen to be the same as those two reasons to avoid them.

When it comes to the time commitment: yes, you will need to expend time and effort in order to submit a quality piece of writing to competitions. That being said, having a hard deadline to meet is a great motivator for developing a solid writing routine.

Think of entering contests as a training session to become a writer who will need to meet deadlines in order to have a successful career. If there’s a contest you have your eye on, and the deadline is in one month, sit down and realistically plan how many words you’ll need to write per day in order to meet that due date — and don’t forget to also factor in the time you’ll need to edit your story!

For tips on setting up a realistic writing plan, check out this free, ten-day course : How to Build a Rock-Solid Writing Routine.

In regards to the fear of rejection, the truth is that any writer aspiring to become a published author needs to develop relatively thick skin. If one of your goals is to have a book traditionally published, you will absolutely need to learn how to deal with rejection, as traditional book deals are notoriously hard to score. If you’re an indie author, you will need to adopt the hardy determination required to slowly build up a readership.

The good news is that there’s a fairly simple trick for learning to deal with rejection: use it as a chance to explore how you might be able to improve your writing.

In an ideal world, each rejection from a publisher or contest would come with a detailed letter, offering construction feedback and pointing out specific tips for improvement. And while this is sometimes the case, it’s the exception and not the rule.

Still, you can use the writing contests you don’t win as a chance to provide yourself with this feedback. Take a look at the winning and shortlisted stories and highlight their strong suits: do they have fully realized characters, a knack for showing instead of telling, a well-developed but subtly conveyed theme, a particularly satisfying denouement?

The idea isn’t to replicate what makes those stories tick in your own writing. But most examples of excellent writing share a number of basic craft principles. Try and see if there are ways for you to translate those stories’ strong points into your own unique writing.

Finally, there are the more obvious benefits of entering writing contests: prize and publication. Not to mention the potential to build up your readership, connect with editors, and gain exposure.

Resources to help you win writing competitions in 2024

Every writing contest has its own set of submission rules. Whether those rules are dense or sparing, ensure that you follow them to a T. Disregarding the guidelines will not sway the judges’ opinion in your favor — and might disqualify you from the contest altogether. 

Aside from ensuring you follow the rules, here are a few resources that will help you perfect your submissions.

Free online courses

On Writing:

• "How to Craft a Killer Short Story" ( Click here )
• "The Non-Sexy Business of Writing Non-Fiction" ( Click here )
• "How to Write a Novel" ( Click here )
• "Understanding Point of View" ( Click here )
• "Developing Characters That Your Readers Will Love" ( Click here )
• "Writing Dialogue That Develops Plot and Character" ( Click here )
• "Stop Procrastinating! Build a Solid Writing Routine" ( Click here )

On Editing:

• "Story Editing for Authors" ( Click here )
• "How to Self-Edit Your Manuscript Like a Pro" ( Click here )
• "Novel Revision: Practical Tips for Rewrites" ( Click here )
• "How to Write a Novel: Steps From a Bestselling Writer" ( Click here )
• "How to Write a Short Story in 9 Simple Steps" ( Click here )
• "100 Literary Devices With Examples: The Ultimate List" ( Click here )
• "20 Writing Tips to Improve Your Craft" ( Click here )
• "How to Write Fabulous Dialogue [9 Tips + Examples]" ( Click here )
• "8 Character Development Exercises to Write 3D Characters" ( Click here )

Bonus resources

• 200+ Short Story Ideas ( Click here )
• 600+ Writing Prompts to Inspire You ( Click here )
• 100+ Creative Writing Exercises for Fiction Authors ( Click here )
• Story Title Generator ( Click here )
• Pen Name Generator ( Click here )
• Character Name Generator ( Click here )

After you submit to a writing competition in 2024

It’s exciting to send a piece of writing off to a contest. However, once the initial excitement wears off, you may be left waiting for a while. Some writing contests will contact all entrants after the judging period — whether or not they’ve won. Other writing competitions will only contact the winners. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind after you submit:

Many writing competitions don’t have time to respond to each entrant with feedback on their story. However, it never hurts to ask! Feel free to politely reach out requesting feedback — but wait until after the selection period is over.

If you’ve submitted the same work to more than one writing competition or literary magazine, remember to withdraw your submission if it ends up winning elsewhere.

After you send a submission, don’t follow it up with a rewritten or revised version. Instead, ensure that your first version is thoroughly proofread and edited. If not, wait until the next edition of the contest or submit the revised version to other writing contests.

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Written by S. Kalekar June 17th, 2018

17 Markets for LGBTQ+ Writing

June is Pride Month in the US – and to celebrate it, here is a list of outlets that accept LGBTQ+ writing. Some calls are themed, and have a deadline. Many of these pay writers. Here they are, in no specific order.

Argot Magazine

This queer-focused website “spans the worlds of queer culture, the feminine narrative, marginalized communities, and politics and culture.” They want nonfiction, short stories, poetry, satire, comics, illustrations, and photo essays . Pay is $35-250. Details here .

The Malahat Review: Queer Perspectives

They want work by Canadian LGBTQ+ writers. They want fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry; query for work outside these perspectives. This issue will celebrate the “aesthetics, concerns, contributions, and achievements of queer writers living in Canada, recognizing their crucial role in providing a truly complete picture of what it is like to be alive in this country in the past, future, and especially today.” Pay is CAD60/page, and work must be sent by 15 July 2018. Details here .

LambdaLiterary

They accept volunteer contributions – essays and opinions on underreported topics that affect the LGBTQ+ community, interviews for authors with new projects on the horizon, LGBT poetry, reviews, as well as blogs and dispatches from people attending Cons or national LGBT book events. Details here .

The Gay & Lesbian Review

They publish nonfiction and poetry – but not short fiction, personal memoirs, or journals. Feature articles (essays around themes updated regularly on their website), reviews, interviews with LGBTQ+ activists and artists, artist’s profile, art memo (personal reflection on the work of a single artist), international spectrum, letters to the editor and guest opinion, all are accepted. The magazine is targeted at literate non-specialists – they want articles that are lively, thought-provoking, readable, and which avoid highly specialized jargon. They accept both pitches and completed articles. Pay is $100 for features and $50 for book reviews. Details here .

A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

Published by Duke University Press, this journal publishes scholarship, criticism, and commentary in areas spanning law, science studies, religion, political science, and literary studies. The aim is to offer queer perspectives on all issues touching on sex and sexuality. The editors particularly seek out new research into historical periods before the twentieth century, into non-Anglophone cultures, and into the experience of those who have been marginalized by race, ethnicity, age, social class, body morphology, or sexual practice. They do not accept unsolicited book or film/video reviews, though editorial contact details are provided, to send enquiries and proposals to. Details here and here .

Connextions Magazine

This is an LGBTQ+ travel magazine and website. They want thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences of people who have traveled somewhere worth mentioning or had an experience that must be shared. They also welcome poetry. Pen names are acceptable. Details here .

Pink Triangle Rhapsody: Volume 1 – Mixed Genre

This is Lycan Valley Press’ newest anthology series in celebration of and dedicated to gay men and their cultural history, for which they accept submissions from gay male writers only. The series is intended to be a collection of stories written with “effusively rapturous or emotional expression.” Volume 1 is a mixed genre volume and will feature 5 stories in each of 5 genres for a total of 25 stories — Horror, Sci Fi, Dark Fantasy, Thriller, Pulp Mystery. Each story must include a supernatural, paranormal or occult element. Pay is $0.04/word. Send work by 31 December 2018. Details here .

Writers must be queer persons of colour/Indigenous/Aboriginal to submit to this Canadian magazine. They accept speculative fiction and nonfiction. Pay is CAD50 and they are open to submissions year-round. Details here .

Less Than Three Press

Apart from unthemed LGBTQ+ romance manuscripts, they have calls for two themes: Home for the Holidays (holiday romance, pays royalties, 30 June deadline) and Life After All (apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic romance, pays $150, deadline extended to 30 September).

Pride Publishing

They want LGBTQ+ romance stories (novelette to novel length) on various themes, including Cowboys and Westerns and Men in Uniform. Series and serials are welcome. They pay royalties and there are no deadlines specified. Details here .

BLF Press: Back From the Future – A Collection of Black Speculative Writing

This is an anthology call for Black speculative fiction and poetry, including science fiction, fantasy and Afrofuturism. They want work by Black women writers, and welcome work from queer or lesbian writers. Pay is $50 and deadline for the themed issue is 30 June 2018. They also accept unthemed submissions – preferred genres are literary fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, and short fiction. Details here .

CutBank: All Accounts and Mixture – A Celebration of LGBTQ Writers and Artists

Their summer issue will showcase poetry, prose (fiction and creative nonfiction), visual art, reviews, and interviews in a forum for LGBTQ+ writers whose voices might be mis- or underrepresented by the literary mainstream. This year, apart from publishing the work online, they will also do a print anthology, which will show new work, and that from the previous five years. They want work from people who self-identify as queer, though the work need not be LGBT-specific. Allies can contribute reviews of books by queer writers, and interviews. Deadline is 1 July 2018. Details here .

This is a queer literary and arts journal, publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art. They welcome anyone identifying as LGBTQ+ to submit. They are currently open for creative nonfiction and poetry. Query for book reviews and interviews. Details here .

They publish work by both emerging and established LGBTQ+ writers. Currently, they want l iterary fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, reviews, interviews, and novel excerpts. They pay. Details here .

Quommnicate Media: Geek Out!

This will be an online and print anthology, and the theme is, ‘Where queer meets geek’. They want genre fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction – opinion essays, topical articles, reviews and comedy, comics/graphic stories and scripts. They do not want literary fiction, memoir-based nonfiction, traditional poetry, erotica or work intended for children. Pay is $5/page. Deadline is 31 August 2018. Details here .

The Wanderer

They publish prose (including book reviews) and poetry by artists whose lens “isn’t the straight, white, cis male one that dominates our culture.” They also want poems in Spanish. Pay is $10-25. Details here .

Autostraddle

They identify themselves as a “provocative voice and a progressively feminist online community for multiple generations of kickass lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies (and their friends).” They have a list of the kind of writing they currently need, including personal essays or features on topics related to queer, feminist, butch/masculine-of-center, and/or outsider culture. Pay is usually $40-100, and they are “particularly inclined to compensate writers at higher rates who are QTPOC, professionals turning in work that doesn’t require editing/revisions, pitching a story from in a perspective or in a subject which is underrepresented on the site.” A few times a year, they also publish feature-style longform journalism/reported pieces for which they can pay up to $1,200, plus expenses – see guidelines. Details here .

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You can download the slides here, and take a look at the sample submission tracker here. Shannan Mann is the Founding Editor of ONLY POEMS. She has been awarded or placed for the Palette Love and Eros Prize, Rattle Poetry Prize, and Auburn Witness Poetry Prize among others. Her poems appear in Poetry Daily, EPOCH,…

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31 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for August 2024

These are themed calls and contests for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Some call themes are: fairy tales; harbinger; vacations; Little Red Flags – Stories of Cults, Cons, and Control; creature features; tumbleweed; secrets of the snow globe; vampires; and Achilles. Some deadlines are approaching quickly. THEMED SUBMISSION CALLS Orange & BeeThis is an Australian Substack-based…

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Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices

The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices is the nation’s premier LGBTQ writing residency. It is the only multi-genre writing residency devoted exclusively to emerging LGBTQ+ writers. The Retreat is an unparalleled opportunity to develop one’s craft and find community.

Since 2007, the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices has offered sophisticated instruction in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young adult fiction, playwriting led by the most talented writers working today. In 2022, the Writers Retreat expanded to include instruction in screenwriting and speculative fiction, and in 2023, the community grew even more with an all new completely virtual multi-genre cohort.

In 2024, Lambda Literary will return to a virtual retreat. We have made the decision to pivot to an online venue because, Beginning in November 2023, it has been necessary for Lambda to reduce expenses significantly, requiring shifts in many of our programs including a limited staff and organizational capacity. However, we are confident the core ethos, vibe, and joy of the Retreat will flourish an online space. We look forward to creating an intimately connected week of Big Gay Writing Camp™ (as coined by Kay Ulanday Barrett in their virtual keynote speech), and we are just as excited as ever to continue the powerful legacy of the Writers Retreat.

SUPPORT THE RETREAT

You can help our community’s most promising storytellers attend the Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices by giving right now.

Relive the 2023 Writers Retreat

On July 30, 2023, over 100 queer writers flooded Chestnut Hill campus in Philadelphia, PA for what our keynote speaker Kay Ulanday Barrett so aptly called, Big Gay Writing Camp™. The energy was high; the jittery nerves and first day school vibes melted away quickly to show us the home we built: within Chestnut Hill, within the Fellow’s cohorts, within each other. Faculty members Jeanne Thornton , Meredith Talusan , Phillip B. Williams , Victor I. Cazares, Ashton Pina , K-Ming Chang , Candice Iloh and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo provided instruction, wisdom, and leadership, while our Fellows and Writers in Residence provided the joy, energy, and community. There we were, back in person for the first time since 2019 as well as online, celebrating our 15th Retreativersary in style. Check out some of our highlights below.

Images and videos from the retreat

Join the 2024 Retreat

Our 7-day retreat takes place annually around the end of July into the first week of August. In addition to our full suite of programming which includes 5 days of workshops, panels, and craft talks, we also offer the opportunity to connect as a community by reading at our nightly reading series, attending social events, and building camaraderie over meals.

Launched in 2007, Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices is the only multi-genre writing residency in the world devoted exclusively to emerging LGBTQ writers. It provides a uniquely powerful opportunity to participants, jumpstarting the careers of dozens of LGBTQ writers every year.

Emerging writers since have taken part in the retreat since 2011.

Faculty, including Dorothy Allison, Danez Smith, Andrew Holleran.

genres, including poetry, young adult fiction, screenwriting, and playwriting

Anthologies, presenting Retreat Fellows work.

Growing Together

As a non-binary and disabled author from the deep south, I used to constantly feel like I was playing catch-up, like I was pretending at being an author. Why couldn’t I write the stories other people wanted to read? It turns out that I had been writing those stories all along — I just needed to find the right people. By sharing my writing with other LGBT+ writers, I was able to focus on the story I wanted to tell, rather than having to justify the presence of queerness in my work. In short, the Retreat allowed me to see myself as a writer again.

Creating Art

Lambda cultivates a space that centers queer/trans experience totally and in doing so circumvents the debate of whether I am a person worthy of a reader’s love and attention…It allows us to ask better questions of our work. When we strip away all the conversations about whether this is subversive, is this niche, is this morally palatable it gives us room to ask: is it good? Does it stand on its own? Does it make me feel? Does it make me think? Is it art?”

Finding Family

“As a faculty member I can attest to the unique and extraordinary talent who participated in this extremely competitive writing residency. I met a cohort of some of the most exciting and talented emerging artists in my field. I was inspired to help move the field forward and create a new body of work from one of the most diverse groups of artists I had ever worked with. We now have a new playwriting family.”

Forging Community

“The Retreat helped me embark on a serious focus, not just in writing but — and this is what’s most important for me — forging a sense of community within the literary world.”

Support Lambda Literary Fellows!

The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices has put many queer writers on the path to publishing. Books by Lambda Fellows can be found on our bookshelf at Bookshop.org, where 10% of your purchase will benefit Lambda Literary.

Fellows & Faculty Directory

You are filtering by.

A.M. Wild (Young Adult Fiction - 2024)

A.M. Wild is a white, queer, nonbinary children’s book author who believes that books are places where we can collectively hope and heal. Each project they work on is a unique reflection of the world as they see it or dream it could be. Their debut title, Not He Or She, I’m Me , a picture book for 3-6 year olds about a day in the life of a nonbinary child, was released by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers in 2023, received three starred reviews, was named one of the most empowering picture books of the year by Kirkus, and was awarded a Stonewall Honor. Their second picture book, Mama, Zaza, and Me was acquired by Henry Holt Books for Young readers and will be released in 2026.

Adele Failes-Carpenter (Nonfiction - 2024)

Adele Failes-Carpenter (she/her) is a queer femme parent, public educator, and labor organizer residing on Ohlone land. She teaches Women’s and Gender Studies and leads the Sexual Health Educator program at City College of San Francisco. Adele has spent decades organizing with labor unions, young people, GI resisters, and anti-war veterans. As a writer and educator, she aims to tend abolitionist imagining and is committed to ongoing experiments in solidarity and the proliferation of possible futures. In her spare time, she enjoys consensually fun bullying her friends and riding her bike late at night. IG: @supernormalclutch

Allison Weissman (Speculative Fiction - 2024)

Allison Weissman (@allison_weissman) is a queer writer from New Jersey pursuing a dual-genre MFA in fiction and creative nonfiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. They serve as assistant art editor at Split Lip Magazine and senior nonfiction editor at Blackbird . Currently, they’re working on a graphic novel about mushrooms at the end of the world.

Alyssa Velazquez (Playwriting - 2024)

Alyssa Velazquez is a cultural historian, storyteller, and playwright. She also has an extensive acting background. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Material Intelligence, S/He Speaks 2: Voices of Women, Trans & Nonbinary Folx, Tower Magazine, Scraps, The Establishment, AutoStraddle, GRLSQUASH, The Fashion Studies Journal, Women’s History Magazine, Juggad: A Material Religions Project, and the Votive Project . Past residencies include City Books Writer-in-Residence and as a Freshworks Artist at Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, PA. She is a proud member of Dramatists Guild of America.

She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For more info: www.velazquezalyssa.com For pics: @velazquezalyssa

Anna-Claire McGrath (Young Adult Fiction - 2024)

Anna-Claire McGrath (she/her) is a 2022 Clarion Workshop grad and has an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been published in McSweeney’s, Blood Orange Review, and New Delta Review, among others. You can find her work at annaclairemcgrath.com. She lives in Virginia where she spends most of her time watching TV shows about vampires.

Augusto Bitter (Screenwriting - 2024)

Augusto Bitter is a Venezuelan-born, Dora Award-winning actor, writer, facilitator, and producer for stage and screen based in Toronto. Augusto is an alum of the Canadian Film Centre’s CBC Actors Conservatory, BIPOC TV & Film’s Kids TV Writing Intensive, Reelworld Film Festival’s Emerging 20 program, and has been a resident artist at Canadian Stage, TPM, Aluna Theatre, Factory Theatre, Soulpepper Theatre, Stratford, and the City of Toronto. Augusto wrote an episode for Miss Persona on Treehouse and is developing an original cartoon. Augusto’s play, CHICHO , was adapted into a short film screened at 11 major cities across North and South America. Food is Augusto’s love language. @augustobitter

Avery Robinson (Poetry - 2024)

Avery Robinson is a trans poet and punk from Orlando, Florida. Their work centers the trans body as a haunted monument, tracing the pulse of its specters across multiple iterations of a buried self, a living name, and the music and media they first learned to disappear inside of. They are currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at University of Pittsburgh. They are a Watering Hole Fellow and a 2024 Tin House Fellow. Previously, they were the recipient of two pushcart nominations and the 2023 Porter House Review Editor’s Prize. Their poems can be found in Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Hunger Mountain, Beloit Poetry Journal , and others. You can find them at @milk_malc on Instagram, or wherever the music is loudest.

Billy Lezra (Nonfiction - 2024)

Billy Lezra (they/them) is an MFA candidate in nonfiction at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has contributed work to Electric Literature, The Washington Post, CNN, Business Insider, TODAY , and elsewhere. They are the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Rough Cut Press , a monthly journal that publishes voices from the LGBTQIA community. They are a fellow of the 2023 Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop, and a participant of the 2024 Tin House Winter Workshop. You can reach Billy at billylezra.com and @b.lezra on Instagram. They are currently writing a reported memoir about queerness and intergenerational addiction.

Blue Nguyen (Poetry - 2024)

Blue Nguyen (they/he) is a Vietnamese non-binary lesbian poet, artist, and community organizer based out of Boston, MA. They have been nominated for Best of the Net Anthology and Best New Poets Anthology . Their poetry can be found at Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Protean Magazine, DEAR Poetry Magazine, Prolit Magazine, Peach Magazine , and more. You can find them on Instagram: @blue.ngu and on Twitter: @queerqhost.

They enjoy creating mixed media art using anything they can find & writing sapphic pen pal letters. Much of their work acts as an ode to their father’s garden, their mother’s bánh xèo, & their brother’s caretaking.

All of their work is, in some way, a translation.

Abe Zapata Jr. (Playwriting - 2023)

Abe Zapata Jr is a multi-hyphenate artist that works and resides in the city of Los Angeles. Abe’s writing deals with being a second generation Queer Mexican-American with a sharp and comedic voice. @abe_zapatajr

Adrian Khactu (Screenwriting - 2023)

Adrian Khactu (he/him) writes and teaches in Honolulu, HI. Clarion West, Fine Arts Work Center, VONA, and Kundiman. He is a pretty bad surfer, but a connoisseur of all the good boba shops on O‘ahu. @AdrianKhactu

Aileen Johnson (Young Adult Fiction - 2023)

Aileen Johnson’s kidlit celebrates diverse and daring young readers. Her novels, short stories, and picture books marry themes of privilege, race, gender, joy, and sexual identity. [JD@GW Law; MFA@VCFA] @aileenajohnson

Alex Romero (Young Adult Fiction - 2023)

Alex Romero is an American writer born and raised in Queens, New York. After earning his BA at Sarah Lawrence College, he taught English in a fishing village in the northwest of France. He is a proud 2023 Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Voices Fellow. In 2022, he was the recipient of the Matt Leone Fellowship at Colgate University. He has been featured or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review , The Coachella Review , Literary Hub , and others. His work has received support from the Southampton Writers’ Conference, the de Groot Foundation, and the Unterberg Poetry Center. He is completing his MFA in fiction at Columbia University, where he was awarded a Chair’s Fellowship. He is at work on a story collection titled Our Little Manila . His Instagram handle is @lil__papo

Alexandra Fallgren (Young Adult Fiction - 2023)

Alexandra Fallgren (she/her) writes about queer girls doing hard things and has far too many degrees. She works with teens in Chicago, where she spends her free time playing cello and spoiling her cat. (@alexfallgren)

Alfredo Trejo III (Virtual Multi-Genre - 2023)

@alfredotrejoIII is a queer scholar & artist, born & raised in LA. He is currently working on his PhD at UCLA. Alfredo has been thriving with HIV for a decade, sharing his story and advocating for people living with HIV.

Alli Cruz (Virtual Multi-Genre - 2023)

Alli Cruz (she/her/ella) is an American writer. Her work has appeared in The Margins, Diode, Hobart Pulp , and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Stanford and an IG account under the handle @allicruzin. Alli resides in L.A.

Amanda Wong (Nonfiction - 2023)

Amanda Wong (they/them) is an essayist and technologist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Amanda’s work explores the intersections between visual art, citizenship, and urban landscapes. Find them on their website (amandawong.xyz) or @awongxyz!

Amelia Diaz (Young Adult Fiction - 2023)

Amelia Diaz, she/her, is a blind, lesbian Latina with an MA in English, a passion for reading and writing queer YA fiction, and a love of French and music. Find her on Twitter @Braillethrulife.

Amina Awad (Young Adult Fiction - 2023)

Amina is a Palestinian writer who currently resides in Boston. Her writing is rooted in a desire to magnify the voices of young Queer Muslims struggling with mental illness. Her writing leans into the Palestinian tradition of storytelling as a means of resistance and connection. When not ranting about imperialism, Amina can be found watering one of her fifty plants named after some of her favorite characters. She is in her second year of her Master of Social Work degree at Boston College. Amina is the co-author of two children’s books written in English and Arabic, exploring storytelling and displacement. Amina can be found on instagram @aminaawado

Amina Kayani (Speculative Fiction - 2023)

Amina Kayani is a Muhajir writer, teacher, and editor. Her stories love their strangeness and have appeared or are forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, the Offing, JOYLAND, and elsewhere. Find her on twitter @_am1na.

Amy Estes (Nonfiction - 2023)

Amy Estes’ (she/her) work has been published in The Rumpus , McSweeney’s & elsewhere. She’s an MFA candidate at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, & a middle school English teacher. Find her online at @amymelissaestes.

Arianna Monet (Virtual Multi-Genre - 2023)

Arianna Monet (she/they) is a queer Black poet and strawberry ice cream enthusiast from eastern Massachusetts. She is also a 2022 Zoeglossia Fellow and can be found on Twitter @spilled__honey.

Ash B. Alpert (Fiction - 2023)

Ash Alpert is a non-binary queer Jewish physician whose novel-in-progress, Shelter , is a coming-of-age story of a young person’s perceived culpability in the violence around her and her search for a home @ash_alpert

Azure D. Osborne-Lee (Screenwriting - 2023)

Azure D. Osborne-Lee (he/they) is a creative writer and educator from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He lives and works in New York City. azureosbornelee.com Twitter: @azuredeezure IG: @theswitchwitch

Becker Grumet (Playwriting - 2023)

Becker Grumet (they/them) is a writer + producer of plays and musicals, as well as a psychotherapist. They are also the lead facilitator of Art Time Presents’ Peer Support Group for Gender Expansive Artists.

Benedict Nguyễn (Fiction - 2023)

Benedict Nguyễn (@xbennyboo) is a dancer, writer, and creative producer. Her writing has appeared in BOMB , Vanity Fair , and AAWW ’s The Margins , among others. She published the art world zine “ nasty notes ” in 2022.

A.C. Lamberty (Screenwriting - 2022)

A.C. Lamberty (he/they) is a Minnesotan filmmaker now residing in Los Angeles. Their work has received honors from film festivals including NewFest, the Hollyshorts Film Festival Screenplay Competition, the Shore Scripts Short Film Fund, QueerWrites, and the Nashville Film Festival. He is currently developing his feature debut, MISS TEEN DAIRY MINNESOTA . Above all, Lamberty aims to create work that subverts traditional notions of representation and creates conversation around queer sex, desire and power. You can see more of their work at www.aclamberty.com, or on Instagram at @aclamberty. Outside of creating perverted art, Lamberty is an avid powerlifter and cinephile.

Aleese Lin (Young Adult Fiction - 2022)

Aleese Lin (Twitter/iG: @aleeselin) is a queer, YA speculative fiction writer based in Evergreen, CO. In her teens, she won national writing competitions and founded her Japanese university’s bilingual creative writing magazine. More recently she has been invited to multiple juried workshops including Tin House YA. She is also a co-organizer of the upcoming 20th annual Pacific Coast Children’s Writers Workshop. Having lived abroad for nearly a decade, her stories explore wildness, identity, and belonging. Aleese enjoys any activity that whisks her into nature, but when she’s snowed in, she’s either writing, reading, or cooking wafū dishes with her partner and opinionated part-Siamese cats.

Alejandro Heredia (Fiction - 2022)

Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro Dominican writer and community organizer from The Bronx. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, the Dreamyard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, and the Dominican Studies Institute. In 2019, he was selected by Myriam Gurba as the winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Contest. His book of short stories, You’re the Only Friend I Need (2021), explores themes of queer transnationalism, friendship, and (un)belonging in the African Diaspora. Alejandro’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Lambda Literary Review, Tasteful Rude Magazine, and elsewhere. Twitter: @heredia_alej Instagram: @aleherex

Amanda Paige Inman (Fiction - 2022)

Amanda Paige Inman works in book marketing, but spent the bulk of her career working with children as a nanny and teacher. Her poetry and prose has been published or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult, and Entropy . She attended the Tin House Summer Workshop and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. You can learn more about her at amandapaigeinman.com and follow on Twitter (@mandapaigeinman) and Instagram (@_mandapaige_).

Amos Mac (Screenwriting - 2022)

Amos Mac is a writer on GOSSIP GIRL for HBO Max. Previously, Amos was known for creating Original Plumbing , the first print magazine in America dedicated to trans male culture. Incited by the lack of nuanced trans masc stories on tv, he spent years in support staff roles on shows including Amazon’s TRANSPARENT and AMC’s THE SON before landing a coveted job on GOSSIP GIRL in 2019. The same year, Amos co-wrote the award-winning feature NO ORDINARY MAN, exploring the extraordinary life of jazz musician Billy Tipton. Amos lives in LA with his family where he writes, develops and pitches original shows that explore identity and second coming of age narratives through a queer lens.

Andy Winter (Poetry - 2022)

Andy Winter (@themythofwinter) is a non-binary trans-femme ice goddess living in the warm tropics of Singapore. They are interested in queer acts and ephemera, and the intersections of poetry, performance and drag. If they are not consulting their tarot cards, they can often be found petting their community cats or strutting down in thigh high boots to the beat of a K-Pop girl group track. They dream of queer kampungs and celestial realms. Their works have appeared in Stellium , Strange Horizons , EnbyLife and beestung amongst others. They were a finalist for the Transpoetics Broadside Prize. Find them chilling at https://whispersinwinter.wordpress.com/

Apoorva Mittal (Fiction - 2022)

Apoorva Mittal (they/she) is a queer author from northern India. They are pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at University of Southern Mississippi. They hold a B.Tech. in Software Engineering from Delhi Technological University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. They want to tell stories that break the monolith of the desi diaspora and present desi queerness in all its twisted beauty. Their short stories and essays have appeared and are forthcoming in Catapult and Electric Literature . They home in Mississippi with their married partner and a river dog named Jake Barnes. They can be found on Instagram and Twitter @MittalWrites.

Aqueela C. Britt (Nonfiction - 2022)

Aqueela C. Britt published her first novel, London Reign , under the pseudonym, A.C. Britt in 2007. She writes raw, matter-of-fact stories about LGBTQ identified black and brown kids trying to live their best lives. She obtained her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University (2018) and has penned several works of short and long fiction, poetry and essays. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from Columbia College, South Carolina and a Master of Social Work from Simmons University (formerly Simmons College). Aqueela C. Britt is the Director of Field Education and Associate Professor of Practice for the Simmons University Bachelor of Social Work program.

aureleo sans (Fiction - 2022)

aureleo sans is a flamingo. She is a Colombian-American, non-binary, queer, formerly unhoused writer/poet with a disability who resides in San Antonio, Texas. This year, she is a Tin House Scholar, a Sewanee Writers Conference fellow, a Roots Wounds Words Writers Retreat fellow, and a Periplus fellow. She was named the second-place winner of Fractured Lit’s 2021 Micro Fiction Contest and has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction. Her work has been published in The Offing, Shenandoah, Salamander , and Electric Literature and is forthcoming in Passages North, No Tokens , and elsewhere. Follow her at @aureleos or www.aureleos.com.

Bex Ehrmann (Young Adult Fiction - 2022)

Bex Ehrmann is a Chicago-based writer, theatremaker, and teaching artist. Through their creative work, they aim to investigate meaningful questions and engage their audience’s imagination. A recipient of fellowships from Luminarts Cultural Foundation and the Highlights Foundation, Bex is now an MFA candidate at Hamline University, where they study Writing for Children and Young Adults. As a teaching artist, they have worked with many organizations that nurture the growth of young people, including About Face Theatre, Ag47 Arts Collective, Youth Guidance, and Imagination Stage. Find Bex on Twitter (@BexEhrmann) and Instagram (@deusbexmachina).

Bobuq Sayed (Fiction - 2022)

Bobuq Sayed is a queer Afghan writer with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami, where they were a James A. Michener Fellow, and winner of the Dean’s Award and the Irene Pines Award.

Their writing has been supported by Tin House, Kundiman, and VONA/Voices, and has appeared or is forthcoming in New Australian Fiction 2022, Gulf Coast, Collisions: Fictions of the Future, Meanjin , and The Rumpus .

They are the co-editor of an anthology called Nothing to Hide: Voices from Trans and Gender Diverse Australia (Allen and Unwin), and they are a 2022-23 Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University. They tweet @bobuqsayed.

A. Light Zachary (Poetry - 2021)

A. Light Zachary is an autistic and bigender human being in Canada. Find them here and here. Light is currently writing two novels + a big book of poems on queer self-determination; in the meantime, you can buy their forthcoming chapbook, I build it better (Rahila’s Ghost, late 2021) and their novella, The End, By Anna (Metatron, 2016). Prior to Lambda, they most recently held a writing studio fellowship at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Light is also a teacher of writing, a consulting editor, and poetry curator of The Puritan.

A.J. McClenon (Poetry - 2021)

Born and raised in “DC proper,” A.J. is passionate about teaching and the art of words & making, with the goal that all the memories and histories that are said to have “too many Black people,” are told and retold again. As a means to uphold these stories A.J. creates writings, performances, installations, objects, sounds, and visuals. These creations often revolve around an interest in water and aquatic life, escapism, Blackness, science, grief, US history, and the global future. A.J. has most recently been published in the Blueshift Journal. Whether in D.C. or in Chicago you may find A.J. carrying around a portable Black Hole while playing the harmonica, a cowbell & other percussive sounds.

A.M. Rosales (Fiction - 2021)

A.M. Rosales is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and translator originally from Cochabamba, Bolivia. They hold a literature degree from George Mason University and their favorite rodent is the capybara. At this point in their life, they have lived in too many places to call any one of them home. Their work is interested in the mundane experiences of bodies and identities in flux, as well as gender identity at the intersection of colonial and indigenous culture. A Pride Foundation scholar and a recipient of the Oregon Literary Fellowship for Women Writers; a collaborating artist at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and a contributor of original content to the PICA blog, their work has been supported by the Precipice Fund and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. They currently teach composition and creative writing while earning their MFA at Portland State University.

andie millares (Playwriting - 2021)

andie millares is a writer, crop top devotee, and earring maker from New Jersey. She is Kundiman Poetry Fellow and serves on the organization’s Junior Board. Currently living in Brooklyn with the world’s most handsome cats, her work has been published in Catapult, Reductress, Foglifter Journal, Underblong, and elsewhere. For thirst traps and crafts, follow her on Instagram @andiewillalwaysloveu. For thirst traps and erratic thoughts about the end of empire, follow her on Twitter @andiemillares.

Anna Dorn (Nonfiction - 2021)

Anna Dorn is a writer and former criminal defense attorney living in Los Angeles. She has published two books (Vagablonde and Bad Lawyer) and has one forthcoming (Exalted). Anna also teaches writing online, edits manuscripts freelance, and writes for the internet. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @___adorn.

Anthony Green (Playwriting - 2021)

Anthony Green (@AnthonyGreen3576) is a writer/director from Memphis, TN but resides in Washington, DC. He’s served as an English professor at both Columbia College as well as the University of Memphis. His work has been featured in Glint Literary Journal, Black Magnolias and Polychrome Ink. He’s also the winner of the DC Black Theater Festival’s One Act battle in the comedy category in 2019. His collection of short stories, #BlackGayStoriesMatter is currently available on Amazon. His final play before the pandemic, When Boys Exhale closed last year. His debut film, The Souls of Black Pebbles will be released Summer 2021. He’s also the founder of Cagedbirds Productions, which affirms black, queer storytelling. In his spare time, Anthony enjoys jigsaw puzzles, frozen margaritas, and primetime soap operas.

Ariel Estrella (Nonfiction - 2021)

Ariel Estrella is a queer Latinx/e scholar hailing from Queens, NYC. Ariel is pursuing a PhD in Literatures in English at Cornell University, specializing in queer of color lyricism and art. To guide their research and creative work, Ariel asks: what does lyricism offer queer creators of color in the midst of racism and cultural celebration; homophobia and queer kinship; transphobia and gender possibility? And, in turn, what do queer creators of color offer lyrical creative enterprises with their experiments in form? Ariel’s essays and poems have been featured in several anthologies; independent zines; and an undergraduate newspaper column on the politics of love. @arielmestrella

Arielle Burgdorf (Fiction - 2021)

Arielle Burgdorf is a writer originally from Washington, D.C. They received their MFA from Chatham University in Pittsburgh where they taught in the Words Without Walls program at Allegheny County Jail and were awarded Best Fiction Thesis and the Creative Excellence Award. Their writing has appeared in Tasteful Rude, Maximum Rocknroll, Crab Fat Magazine, X-Ray Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. They are currently pursuing their PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. In their spare time, Arielle loves to skateboard, volunteer with organizations supporting prison abolition, and play bass. You can find them on Instagram @jungle_of_fear

Aroh Akunth (Fiction - 2021)

Aroh Akunth is Dalit Queer Writer-Curator interested in building worlds that center the lived experience of their peoples. They are the current curator of Dalit Queer Project and Dalit Art Archive. Their current literary projects include a short story collection and a literary anthology by the Dalit Queer community. When not trying to catch up with their own thoughts Aroh is found watering their grandmothers plants. Keep up with them on IG at @dalitqueerproject @dalitartarchive @arohakunth

Benjamin Garcia (Nonfiction - 2021)

Benjamin Garcia’s first collection, THROWN IN THE THROAT (Milkweed Editions, August 2020), was selected by Kazim Ali for the 2019 National Poetry Series. A son of Mexican immigrants, he received his BA from the University of New Mexico and his MFA from Cornell University. Benjamin had the honor of being a 2019 Lambda Literary fellow, the 2018 CantoMundo Fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and the 2017 Latinx Scholar at the Frost Place Conference on Poetry. He is the winner of the 2018 Puerto del Sol Poetry Contest and the 2019 Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction Contest. His poems and essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming in: AGNI, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and many more. Find him at benjamingarciapoet.com.

Andrew Rosendorf (Playwriting - 2019)

Andrew Rosendorf‘s work has been produced or developed at La Jolla, MCC, KC Rep, Signature Theatre, the National New Play Network, Nashville Rep, City Theatre, Geva Theatre, Actor’s Express, and Local Theater Company. He is an alum of NNPN’s Playwright-in-Residence program, the Ingram New Works program, terraNOVA Collective’s Groundbreakers Playwrights Group, and has been a SPACE on Ryder Farm, Tofte Lake Center, VCCA, and MacDowell Colony Fellow. He was a previous McKnight and Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights’ Center. His play, Cottontail, was a runner-up for the Yale Drama Series Award. MFA: The New School for Drama, Playwriting.

Anthony Veasna So (Fiction - 2019)

Anthony Veasna So is a queer boy, a Cambodian-American son of former refugees, and a graduate of Stanford University. From Stockton, CA, he was raised on stories of the Khmer Rouge Genocide that often, somehow, ended on a joke. His prose and comics have appeared in n+1, Hobart, and Ninth Letter. Currently, he is a PD Soros Fellow and an MFA Candidate in Fiction at Syracuse University, where he was awarded a University Fellowship and the Joyce Carol Oates Award for Fiction. He is at work on a novel and a collection of stories interspersed with comics.

Aurielle Marie (2019)

Writer-in-residence Aurielle Marie is an essayist, poet, and activist hailing from the Deep South. She’s received invitations to fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA Voices, and Tin House. Her work is featured or forthcoming in The Guardian, Allure Magazine, Adroit Journal, Vinyl Poetry, and BOAAT. Aurielle writes about Blackness, bodies, sex and pop culture from a Black feminist lens. Follow her: YesAurielle

Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Young Adult Fiction - 2019)

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an author of poetry and prose for adults and teens. He is the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the American Book Award for his books for adults. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe was a Printz Honor Book, the Stonewall Award winner, the Pura Belpre Award winner, the Lambda Literary Award winner, and a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. His first novel for teens, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, was an ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book for teens, He Forgot to Say Goodbye, won the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, and was named a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He teaches creative writing at the University of Texas, El Paso.

Benjamin Garcia (Poetry - 2019)

Benjamin Garcia works in HIV/HCV/STD and opioid overdose prevention in the Finger Lakes region of New York. He had the honor of being the 2017 Latinx Scholar at the Frost Place, 2018 CantoMundo Fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and winner of the 2018 Puerto Del Sol Poetry Contest. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in: The Missouri Review, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, and Best New Poets 2018. Find him on twitter: @bengarciapoet

Abraham Johnson (Playwriting - 2018)

Abraham Johnson is a queer writer based in Athens, Georgia and he is so excited to be returning as a 2018 Lambda Playwriting Fellow this year. His plays have been developed all around Athens and Atlanta, working with the Classic City Fringe Festival, New Georgia Group, Horizon Theater, Out of Box Theater, Essential Theater, and Lionheart Theater. His playwriting has also earned him residencies with the Sundress Academy for The Arts, recognition as a 2017 Lambda Playwriting Fellow, and in 2018 he was a finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farms’ Greenhouse Residency. His publications can be seen in the international queer men’s magazine Hello Mr., Emerge, the 2017 Lambda Emerging Voices Anthology, and the Athens Playwrights’ Workshop Press. In his free time, Abraham enjoys drinking cheap wine with his boyfriend and recommending Sarah Ruhl’s 100 Essays to strangers. He hopes you pick up a copy for yourself.

Adam Swanson (Nonfiction - 2018)

Adam Swanson is a writer, advocate, and occasional ballet dancer. Today he works with state governments as the senior prevention specialist at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Adam helped advance anti-bullying legislation and HIV/AIDS reforms while working in the U.S. Senate, and he is a former Mental Health America fellow. He was recipient of the 2017 AIDS Healthcare Foundation Student Award to support his studies at George Washington University in its LGBT Health Practice and Policy graduate certificate program. Adam holds a Master’s in public policy, and sits on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s Consumer-Survivor Advisory Committee.

Amal Haddad (Young Adult Fiction - 2018)

Amal Haddad is a haphazard poet and wannabe novelist who collects maps of the Upper Michigan Peninsula, despite never having been there. Her writing has been recognized by the Montgomery County Council for Arts and Humanities and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She is a 2018 Adroit Journal summer mentee in poetry and was named a 2018 YoungArts Finalist in Visual Arts for her series about the AIDS epidemic and its ramifications today. Amal studies English at Swarthmore College.

Amanda V. Mead (Young Adult Fiction - 2018)

Amanda V. Mead is a queer writer and teacher living in Spokane, Washington with her wife, two dogs, and a cantankerous cat named Seamus. She received her MFA from Eastern Washington University, where she served as Poetry Editor for Willow Springs. She was a contributor to Lambda Literary-nominated collections Dear John, I Love Jane, and its sequel Greetings from Janeland. Her poetry has been published in Calyx, Drunken Boat, Confrontation, and elsewhere. Amanda is currently working on a young adult novel that connects her childhood home in eastern Montana to her current home in the Pacific Northwest.

Amos Mac (Young Adult Fiction - 2018)

Amos Mac is an artist living and working in Hollywood. In 2009 he founded Original Plumbing, the seminal print magazine documenting the culture of trans men. He was a producer for the Emmy-nominated series Gaycation, has been honored on the OUT 100, TRANS 100, and featured in the HBO film The Trans List. The Original Plumbing Anthology, featuring the best of all 20 issues, will be published by the Feminist Press in 2019. Amos is writing the young adult novel he needed as a kid.

Anant Kaur (Nonfiction - 2018)

Anant Kaur is Brown and proud, a femme working-class survivor. Their writing appears in various publications including Feministing, The World Policy Journal, Bitch and make/shift magazines, and their self-published anthology Colored Girls. They is one of seven sex worker storytellers featured in the documentary film The Red Umbrella Diaries. They also graced the cover of the New York Times Magazine and was listed in Marie Claire magazine’s list of sex workers better suited for the presidency than 45. They has over a decade of experience organizing in low-income communities of color where they played a lead role in decriminalizing medical marijuana and ending the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution in New York State. They has a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto and an MA in Public Policy and Administration from McMaster University. They currently lives in Toronto, Dish With One Spoon Territory, and is writing their first book of stories on sex work.

Aurielle Marie (Poetry - 2018)

Aurielle Marie is a Black, Atlanta-born, Queer hip-hop scholar and a community organizer. Through her work as a poet and an activist, she explores the uses of intimacy and ritual in the practice of Black resistance. Aurielle is a 2018 Lambda Literary Writer Retreat fellow, a 2017 Roddenberry Fellowship Finalist, a Voices of Our Nation Fellow-Alum, a 2016 Kopkind Fellow, and a current Queer Emerging Artist-In-Residence at Destiny Art Center. She was chosen by Safiya Sinclair as the 2017 Poetry Prize Winner for Blue Mesa Review. She has been featured as a social-political pundit on CNN. Her essays and poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Adroit Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Selfish Magazine, in Scalawag, on For Harriett, ESSENCE Mag, Allure, NBC Blk, and Huffington Post. Her collection, Gumbo Ya Ya, won the 2017 Write Bloody Poetry Prize. Her work has been featured on a global host of stages, most prestigiously in her grandmother’s kitchen.

Avi Cummings (Fiction - 2018)

Avi Cummings is a writer pursuing an MFA in fiction at Brooklyn College. With Belkys Garcia, he is co-editing a special fiction issue of The Scholar and Feminist Online, “‘Grab the Broom of Anger’: Stories for the Revolution.” Avi has worked at the Barnard Center for Research on Women and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. He has also been involved with Jewish Voice for Peace, the Roots to Freedom Giving Circle, and other activist projects. He lives in New York City.

Barrak Alzaid (Fiction - 2018)

Barrak Alzaid is a writer and an artist with extensive experience in curating contemporary art and performance. His current project, Fabulous at Five, is a memoir that relates the coming of age of a gay kid in an Arab and Muslim upbringing. It is a story of coming of age and family fracture and reconciliation. He is a founding member of the artist collective GCC whose work examines the Arab Gulf region’s transformations and shifting systems of power. They have exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at MoMA Ps1, The Whitney Biennial, Sultan Gallery Kuwait, Berlin Bieniale IX, and Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. He lives in Chiang Mai with his husband and their dog Starbuck.

Benjamin Fainstein (Playwriting - 2018)

Benjamin Fainstein is a playwright and theatre maker currently based in Portland, Oregon, where he serves as literary manager and resident dramaturg for Portland Center Stage at The Armory and JAW: A Playwrights Festival. His plays and performance texts include Carnival/Invisible, Iphigenia Among the Stars, Prototype 373-G, The Body Politic, and Paradise Sets In. He is a former founding artistic director of Whistler in the Dark Theatre, associate artistic director of Yale Cabaret, and managing editor of Theater magazine. Benjamin is a graduate of Middlebury College and Yale School of Drama; he originally hails from Houston, Texas.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis (Nonfiction - 2018)

Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a longtime writer with The New York Times Magazine, where he is known for deeply reported cover stories and features about identity, LGBT life, youth culture, and mental health. Benoit’s narrative nonfiction has also appeared in Rolling Stone, Slate, and Out. He is the author of three nonfiction books, including “America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life” and the New York Times bestselling “Travels With Casey: My Journey Through Our Dog-Crazy Country.” Named one of the most fifty most influential LGBT media members by The Advocate, Benoit appears on many radio and television programs, including Good Morning America, The Today Show, and NPR’s Here & Now and On Point. He teaches at Emerson College in Boston.

Aaron Tilford (Nonfiction - 2017)

Aaron Tilford works as a graphic designer and DJ. He is a recent transplant to LA after 15+ years in NYC and an extended layover in his hometown of Bloomington, IN. Since 2003 he’s been editing and publishing the queer-bent literary art journal Spunk, for which he has curated art shows and organized readings and other events. His writing and art have appeared in Exposed: The BPX Zine, the JOSH, Lambda Literary Review, and Mary Literary. He has appeared in KAISERIN Hors-Série; CRUSHfanzine; the reading series Brother My Lover; and in Robert W. Richards’ The Vanishing City at Dixon Place.

Abraham Johnson (Playwriting - 2017)

Abraham Johnson is a young writer from Athens, Georgia. He is an active member of the Athens Playwrights’ Workshop and his plays have been produced by every student theatre group at the University of Georgia. He has also developed plays at the Horizon Theatre, Out of Box Theatre, Sundress Academy for The Arts, and the UGA Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities. His prose has been published in the magazine Hello Mr. as well as won the American Voices and National Silver Medals in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. He recently received CURO’s 2017 Summer Research Fellowship to research “Queer Spirituality Onstage.”

Al Reitz (Young Adult Fiction - 2017)

Al Reitz is a Boston-based writer, a prose reader for the Blueshift Journal, and an aspiring cryptid. They spend most of their time thinking about the stars, frantically writing down ideas in their iPhone notes, and reminding themself that they’re never finished growing. Their debut collection of short stories, Middlelands, was released from Wilde Press in April.

Ammi Keller (Fiction - 2017)

Ammi Keller is almost done with a novel-in-stories about Hurricane Katrina, sexuality and disaster capitalism. She wrote the zine Emergency and has published fiction and nonfiction in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015, American Short Fiction, Joyland, Stories Care Forgot, The Zine Yearbook and Bottoms Up. Ammi was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University and now teaches for Stanford’s Certificate in Novel Writing Program. Her writing has been supported by residencies from the Norton Island Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Annette Covrigaru (2017)

Writer-in-Residence Annette Covrigaru is a bigender American-Israeli writer and returning Lambda Fellow. In 2014, she received Kenyon College’s Muriel C. Bradbrook Award for her story “Echoes of Time,” which also won Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal’s short fiction contest and was nominated for the Best of the Net Awards. She is the creator and editor of All Things Jesbian, an LGBTQ Jew(ish) literary and art magazine (allthingsjesbian.com) whose inaugural issue will be out this summer. Her work has appeared in HIKA, Kaaterskill Basin, TQ Review, The Calling Bell, and Gaslight. A master’s student in Holocaust Studies at University of Haifa, she has dedicated most of her young adult life to working for various LGBTQ and Jewish non-profits.

Azure D. Osborne-Lee (2017)

Writer-in-Residence Azure D. Osborne-Lee is a theatre maker from South of the Mason-Dixon Line. He is an inaugural Field Leadership Fund Arts Manager Fellow (2015-2017) as well as a Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting (2015 & 2016). Azure received the 2015 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Award for his first full-length play “Mirrors.”

Alexis Smithers (Young Adult Fiction - 2016)

Alexis Smithers is a black nonbinary writer who grew up and still lives in the DMV (D.C./Maryland/Virginia area) and creates mostly through poetry, personal essay, and fiction. A contributing editor for Words Dance Magazine, Alexis advised to Winter Tangerine Review’s workshop for writers of color, interned at a non-profit advocating for people with rare blood diseases, and attended Pink Door, a women of color writer’s retreat. Currently working in food service and trying to turn all the learning they’ve done in the past four years into a tangible degree, Alexis tweets at @DangerLove12.

Andrew Holleran (Fiction - 2016)

Andrew Holleran is the author of Dancer From the Dance, a novel about pre-AIDS New York, and, most recently, Grief, a novella set in post-AIDS Washington, D.C. An original member of The Violet Quill, he has written two other novels, a book of stories, and a collection of essays about AIDS. For the past decade, he has been teaching Creative Writing at American University in Washington and currently writes for The Gay and Lesbian Review.

Ashley Young (Nonfiction - 2016)

Ashley Young is a Queer feminist poet, author and teacher. Her work has been published in three anthologies, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press), All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color (University of Wisconsin Press) and Glitter and Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy (Portland Studio). She a contributor at Elixher magazine‎ and has been featured in various online magazines, such as Autostraddle, Rvkvry Journal and more. She is a 2010 Voices of Our Nation’s Foundation Poetry Fellow and a 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation Nonfiction Fellow, to return summer of 2016. She taught her biomythography workshop at the Fire and Ink Conference in 2015 and performs her work at various readings throughout the country. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and prose entitled Chronicles of Bipolar Living and is completing her first novel, a biomythography entitled The Liberation of the Black Unicorn. Ashley lives in New York City with her wife, four wild cats and her sweet service dog.

Audley Puglisi (Playwriting - 2016)

Audley Puglisi is a playwright and poet. Fellowships include The Playwright’s Realm Writing Fellowship, VONA/Voices, and Lambda Literary. They are a member of the Page 73 Writer’s Group, EST/Youngblood, and have been a resident at Djerassi and Blue Mountain Center. Their writing has been published in  Garage Magazine, Color Bloq,  and elsewhere. Audley received a BA in Africana Studies from Oberlin College and an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.

Azure D. Osborne-Lee (Playwriting - 2016)

Azure D. Osborne-Lee is a theatre maker and arts administrator from South of the Mason-Dixon Line. He holds an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice from Royal Central School of Speech & Drama as well as an MA in Women’s & Gender Studies and a BA in English & Spanish from The University of Texas at Austin. Azure is an inaugural Field Leadership Fund Arts Manager Fellow (2015-2017) as well as an alumnus of both Rising Circle Theater Collective’s INKtank (2014) and EMERGENYC, the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program (2014). Azure has held playwriting residences with Brooklyn Community Pride Center (2015), New Shoes Theatre (2011), and Freedom Train Productions (2010), and he was recently awarded the 2015 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Award for his first full-length play, “Mirrors.” He has performed at BRIC, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), HERE Arts Center, BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

Baruch Porras Hernandez (Playwriting - 2016)

Baruch Porras Hernandez is currently working on three full length plays, and a solo play. His solo play currently titled ¡Agárrate! is being developed for production by a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission for Individual Theatre Artists. His last solo play When I Was a Color Kid debuted at Marga Gomez’s PERFORMERAMA at Oasis SF-2015. His first solo show Reasons to Stay On The Ground was performed at the National Queer Arts Festival in 2010. His first children’s play Rosita y La Llorona was produced by Sonoma State University in 2003. His ten-page play, Apex of Friendzone was recently published by The Santa Ana River Review. He has a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Sonoma State University and is a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry-2014. Mr. Porras Hernandez’s poetry can be found in several anthologies and regularly hosts poetry shows in San Francisco where he lives.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Young Adult Fiction - 2016)

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an author of poetry and prose for adults and teens. He is the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the American Book Award for his books for adults as well as a Lambda Literary Award for Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe was a Printz Honor Book, the Stonewall Award winner, the Pura Belpre Award winner, the Lambda Literary Award winner, and a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. His first novel for teens, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, was an ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book for teens, He Forgot to Say Goodbye, won the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, and was named a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He teaches creative writing at the University of Texas, El Paso.

Annah Anti-Palindrome (Poetry - 2015)

Annah Anti-Palindrome is a bay-area based musician/Optical Sound-Smith, writer, and queer/femme antagonist who hails from the working-class craters at the base of the Sierra Foothills. Annah performs using a variety of different mediums including a Line 6 (DL4) looping system, kitchen utensils, gas-masks, raw eggs, blood pressure cuffs, found objects, her body (mostly her throat), and more! As part of the 2014 National Queer Arts Festival, Annah co-edited Passage and Place, a queer anthology on Home. Annah is also the co-editor of 1-2-3 Punch: How Misogyny Hurts Queer Communities, curator for the East Bay’s monthly event, Culture Fuck!, and a collective member of Deviant Type Press. She holds an MFA in poetry from Mills College. Her written work has been published in Transfer literary magazine, Buckets Kicked: Writings on Radical Grief, and in the QZAP archives (Queer Zine Archive Project). She is currently working on a collection of poems tentatively called Resisting Palindromes.

Anton Dela Cruz (Nonfiction - 2015)

Anton Dela Cruz is a writer based in Columbia, South Carolina by way of New York. He is a Nonfiction Reader for Tayo Literary Magazine. A VONA/Voices fellow, his writing explores the intersection of science and culture.

Azure D. Osborne-Lee (Playwriting - 2015)

Azure D. Osborne-Lee is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist and theatre maker. This past winter Azure’s writing was presented as part of The Fire This Time Festival and National Black Theatre’s Keep Soul Alive! Mondays. This spring you can find him leading the Voicebox Workshops at Brooklyn Community Pride Center. Come summer he will receive a reading at 2econd Stage Theatre. Azure was also recently a member of Hemispheric Institute’s EMERGENYC and Rising Circle Theater Collective‘s 2014 INKtank. He has been selected as a finalist for National Black Theatre’s I AM SOUL playwriting residency and Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab.

Alex Grandstaff (Fiction - 2014)

Alex Grandstaff is a nonbinary native Houstonian and founding member of Gamma Rho Lambda’s Kappa Chapter at their alma mater, University of Houston. Alex is into urban fantasy and magical realism stories with a side of memoirs. A writer of fiction and comics, they are currently writing and illustrating a graphic novel The Trialand working on the novel The Moving City. Both pieces began as a part of Alex’s senior honors thesis, a collection of fiction focused on queer protagonists. Alex still resides in Houston and can be found blogging at AnalyticalAlex and making art on AGrandMark.

Anne Laughlin (Genre Fiction - 2014)

Anne Laughlin is the author of five novels – three that have been published by Bold Strokes Books and two more that will come out in late 2014. She has written numerous short stories published by Cleis Press, Alyson Books and others. Her story “It Only Occurred to Me Later” was a finalist in the Saints and Sinners 2013 Short Fiction Contest. She is a three time Goldie Award winner and has twice been short listed for a Lammy Award. Anne was named a Writers Retreat Fellow by the Lambda Literary Foundation in 2008. She’s been accepted into residencies at Ragdale and Vermont Studio Center. Anne lives in Chicago with her wife, Linda.

Annette Covrigaru (Nonfiction - 2014)

Annette Covrigaru is a Long Island, NY native who has not only spent the past four years living in rural Ohio, but has spent the past four years being asked, “Why did you want to go to school in Ohio?” That being said, she recently graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A. in English emphasizing in Creative Writing. Her short story “Echoes of Time” won the college’s Muriel C. Bradbrook Award. Her stories have been published in Kenyon’s student run literary magazine, HIKA. In past years, she has worked as a Kenyon Review Student Associate and has interned at Random House. An incoming M.A. student in the Weiss-Livnat International M.A. Program in Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa, she will continue to merge her studies of the Holocaust and queer identity to create nonfictional stories and preserve LGBTQA Holocaust narratives. When she isn’t writing, Annette is most likely playing guitar, lounging on Fire Island, or watching Game of Thrones.

Baruch Porras-Hernandez (Poetry - 2014)

Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a writer, performer, and organizer, based in San Francisco. He has performed his writing all over California, and featured at shows in Washington D.C., NYC, and Canada. His poetry appears in Aim for the Head anthology of Zombie Poetry, -Write Bloody Publishing, Divining Divas – Lethe Press, Flicker and Spark Queer Poetry Anthology -Low Brow Press, Tandem – Bicycle Comics Press, Sparkle and Blink -Quiet Lightning Press, and is forth coming in Multiverse, anthology of Superhero Poetry, also with Write Bloody Publishing. For the past 5 years he’s been the curator and head organizer for The San Francisco Queer Open Mic and regularly puts together literary shows and festivals, most recently the ¿Donde Esta Mi Gente? festival of Latino Poetry and Spoken Word. He has been a resident artist at the spoken word program at the Banff Center in Alberta Canada, and the A.I.R. Program at The Garage, a Space for Performance Art, in San Francisco. He was born in Toluca, Mexico and grew up in Albany, California. Baruch Porras-Hernandez

Audrey Coulthurst (Young Adult Fiction - 2013)

A native of Portland, Oregon, Audrey Coulthurst now lives in Austin, Texas, despite her passionate hatred of hot weather. She received an MS in Writing (Book Publishing) from Portland State University in 2008 and is completing the final edits on her YA fantasy about a princess who falls in love with her fiancé’s sister. Audrey spends most of her time cackling gleefully at her computer while crafting elaborate euphemisms and disturbing metaphors. However, she can also be found drinking too much tea at her day job, telling crude jokes with her friends, livetweeting bad movies, or riding her horse.

Blake Nemec (Poetry - 2013)

Blake Nemec is a health care worker, writer and teacher, from Western Wisconsin, who lives in Chicago. He recently completed an MFA in Bilingual Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he started Mouth to Mouth: a hybrid poetry/fiction collection about flash intimacies between informal trade workers. He is recently included in Captive Genders; Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, the Rio Grande Review and Jupiter 88. The National Queer Arts Festival, Radical Queer Semaine, and Boston AWP are events where he has presented or performed.

Abbie J. Leavens (Poetry - 2012)

Abbie J. Leavens is a writer-poet-mother-lover-teacher-student-friend who lives in Los Angeles. She is currently wrapping up her MFA from UC-Irvine. While at UCI, she has taught classes such as composition & rhetoric and beginning poetry. She loves teaching as much as writing, so this has been very awesome. Her work has appeared in various journals including Barnstorm, BlazeVOX, BLOOM, Reed, and Xenith, among others. She grew up in Iowa and enjoys iced tea, sunshine, and good company.

AJ Reyes (Young Adult Fiction - 2012)

AJ Reyes was born and raised in Austin, Texas. As a music lover, bookworm and sexy beast, he enjoys all things awesome. When he’s not roller skating, playing his guitar or watching covers of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” on YouTube, you’ll find him sitting on his bedroom floor writing. His published works include— Oh, wait. He doesn’t have any. He does, however, have a large collection of other people’s published works. You’ll often find an AJ in a dark and cold climate. AJ’s often melt when left in direct sunlight.

Alex Sanchez (Young Adult Fiction - 2012)

Alex Sanchez, recipient of LLF’s 2011 Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists’ Prize, is best known for his debut 2001 novel, Rainbow Boys, selected by the American Library Association as a “Best Book for Young Adults,” and praised by School Library Journal as a book that could “open eyes and change lives.” The success of that first novel led to two Rainbow sequels and the Lambda Award-winning middle-grade novel, So Hard to Say. His novel, The God Box, explores the intersection between sexuality and spirituality. And his novel, Getting It, a sort of “queer eye for the straight teenage boy,” won the Myers Outstanding Book Award for Human Rights. Alex’s last novel, Bait, won the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for young adult fiction and was recently selected to receive the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award. His newly-released novel, Boyfriends with Girlfriends, focuses on bisexual teens. Alex received his master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Old Dominion University and for many years worked as a youth and family counselor. He divides his time between Florida and Thailand.

Alysia Angel (Fiction - 2012)

Alysia Angel is a southern-bred Lakota, and a working class queer high femme. She is self-published in chapbooks entitled “what i do when you’re not looking”. She is also published in Femme Family zine, Salacious Magazine, Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion, Bay Woof Magazine, Cactus Heart Magazine, Curve Magazine, Say Please, a Cleis Press anthology, and is a 2011 and 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow.

Annameekee Hesik (Young Adult Fiction - 2012)

Annameekee Hesik grew up on a healthy diet of Pippi Longstocking movies, Fig Newtons, and Schwinns. Too tall for most backseats, she spent her teen years playing basketball and wearing high waters. She now teaches high school English in Northern California and writes the books she wishes were around when she started falling for girls. Her YA novel, The You Know Who Girls, will be available in October, 2012. Its sequel is in the works. She is the youngest of ten siblings and likes her beverages ice cold. She is…the most interesting lesbian in the world.

Beth Neff (Young Adult Fiction - 2012)

Beth Neff majored in journalism at the University of Michigan but only turned back to writing recently after almost three decades as an organic vegetable farmer, dairy goat maven, sustainability activist, and single mother to four homeschooled children. Her young adult novel Getting Somewhere was released by Viking/Penguin in early 2012. She is presently at work on several more novels, a couple of non-fiction manuscripts and a collection of short fiction. When not writing, she can usually be found in her garden, playing the piano, on the river, reading, or in the kitchen.

Alan Orr (Genre Fiction - 2011)

Alan Orr teaches college courses in writing, rhetoric, and grammar in Toronto. He’s written textbooks and instructors’ manuals on business writing, and his short screenplays have received honourable mention in the US and Mexico. Alan has an MA in English Literature from University of Sheffield (UK) and an MEd in Applied Linguistics. Alan is currently having a great time working on his first novel, Death by Deceit, a murder mystery romp in the desert.

Allison Moon (Genre Fiction - 2011)

Allison Moon‘s first novel, Lunatic Fringe, can be summed up in two words: Lesbian Werewolves. It will be released in October 2011 and she is currently working on the sequel. Her writing has been published in make/shift, Not For Tourists, Nerve, McSweeneys.net, and she was recently named a runner up for the Victoria Hudson Emerging Writer’s Award. Allison is a vocal queer, polyamorous, and sex-positive feminist who blogs about all of these things, and more, at TalesofthePack.com.

Alysia Angel (Fiction - 2011)

Alysia Angel is a wise cracking, working class, queer high femme, an avid yelp.com reviewer, and a long time barista and coffee lover. She has self published a series of prose/poetry chapbooks titled “what i do when you’re not looking”, has pieces published in Salacious Magazine, Curve Magazine online, and is slated to be published in a Lesbian BDSM Erotica anthology by Cleis Press in 2012. She deeply loves all dogs and encourages them to jump on her and muddy her fancy dresses.

Anders Renee (Poetry - 2011)

Anders Renee is a purple seahorse living in a trannyboi’s body with a queer mind that is up to no good. He just received his BA in Gender Studies from Scripps College and can’t wait to explore his own voice and discover new ones. When he’s not cutting people’s hair he can probably be found eating a burrito and scribbling down poems on paper plates.

Andrea Lawlor (Fiction - 2011)

Andrea Lawlor writes, studies, and teaches writing at UMass-Amherst, and edits the Pocket Myths series. Lawlor’s writing has appeared in Persiflage, The Brooklyn Rail, Route 9, Encyclopedia (Volume II), MiPOesias, and OCHO 31.

Andrew J. Peters (Genre Fiction - 2011)

Andrew J. Peters writes fantasy, young adult and contemporary fiction. His work has appeared in Ganymede, Wilde Oats and La Bloga. His latest project is an LGBT re-telling of the last days of Atlantis. While writing and submitting his work for publication, he works as a social worker for LGBT youth. Andrew lives in New York City with his partner and their feline “daughter” Chloë.

Anna-Marie McLemore (Fiction - 2011)

Anna-Marie McLemore writes from her Mexican-American roots in the Southwest, her upbringing in the Christian church, and the love of stories she first learned from her family. Her work is included in six Cleis Press anthologies and has also appeared in cratelit and on the website of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. She lives in California with her Sapphic husband.

Ashley Young (Nonfiction - 2011)

Ashley Young is a black feminist queer dyke; poet, non-fiction writer and teaching artist. She is the creator of an online writing project for women of color called Brown Girl Love and is currently working on a memoir. She works as the Education Program Assistant at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and as a teaching artist for Urban Stages. She lives with her partner and four cats in New York City.

Belo Cipriani (Nonfiction - 2011)

Belo Cipriani is a freelance writer, speaker, and the author of Blind: A Memoir. To read and write, Belo uses a desktop application for the blind called JAWS. His favorite snack is cold pizza and one of his past times is sneaking quick games of tug-a-war with his guide dog Madge throughout the day. Belo lives in San Francisco.

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54 Excellent, Low-Stakes Writing Prompts

Across grade levels, engaging and creative writing prompts encourage kids to explore their opinions, reflect on experiences, and build strong arguments.

Routine low-stakes writing should be part of every student’s literacy diet. Ungraded and low-pressure, this type of writing improves kids’ writing stamina and builds language fluency, says Rebecca Alber , an instructor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education.

Under the right conditions, students can get ideas about a question or concept down quickly and with few parameters, then “share those thoughts, and feel just as successful as everyone else in the room,” Alber says. The goal is to help students feel empowered to communicate ideas clearly and convincingly, while increasing their confidence as writers in preparation for longer, higher-stakes writing. 

Prompts are an excellent starting point—but not all prompts are created equal, writes Todd Finley , a professor of English Education at East Carolina University. Superficially clever prompts may get pencils moving but often result in writing that’s neither valuable nor memorable. To improve the quality of students’ output and their level of investment, present them with prompts that require persuasive, opinion, informative, or even creative responses—and consider incorporating some student choice in the process. 

As a wrap-up, students can share their work with a partner, in small groups, or even aloud to the class. To allow everyone to fully participate in the messy work of writing and occasionally “let their scraggly emotions run free,” Finley suggests offering the option to write “personal” at the top of pages they prefer to keep private.  

We combed through dozens of lists of teacher-tested prompts to find 54 thought-provoking ones that will get students—from elementary through middle and high school—thinking, reflecting, and engaging in meaningful writing. 

Elementary School Prompts

• I wish my teachers knew that… 
• What things do all kids know that adults do not? 
• Describe a routine that you often or always do (in the morning, when you get home, Friday nights, before a game, etc.). 
• You wake up tomorrow with a silly superpower that makes you famous. What is that silly power? How does it lead to you becoming an international superstar? 
• What are examples of things you want versus things you need? 
• Describe something that you saw in the news recently and how it made you feel.
• What is one thing you would do to make your school, town, or city a better place?
• What can we do to help people with different opinions get along better?
• If you met an alien, what three questions would you ask them?
• Which skill would you like to be good at in the future?
• You’re on a quest through a hidden underground world that no one has ever seen. What magical creatures do you come across? What do they look like, and how do they act? 
• You’re the first person to ever set foot on Mars. What is it like? What do you explore first? 
• I will never forget the day… 
• Pretend you can trade places with someone real or imaginary, from the past or present. Describe who that person is and why you would like to trade places. Write about what you would do as that person for the day and how you would feel about it.
• Write about the kind of job you think you might like to do someday. Be sure to explain what you know about that job and why you think it would be a good fit for you. 
• Would a robot make a good friend? Think about all the good and bad aspects of having a mechanical buddy. Explain why you would or would not want a robot for a friend.
• Write a story about something that happened at school one day that you want to remember for the rest of your life.
• Describe a person who influenced your life in a positive way, someone who has made a difference in your life. Explain what this person did and how it made your life different. 

Middle School Prompts

• How can you tell when someone your age is feeling insecure? Are most people more insecure or anxious than they let on?
• If you starred in a television show about your life, what would the show be called? What genre would it be? (Examples: comedy, drama, thriller, romance, action-adventure, fantasy, superhero, soap opera, reality, game show, space adventure, Western, tragedy, etc.) Summarize the plot of an episode. 
• Is your ethnicity an important part of your identity? How so? 
• You have been selected to be principal of your school. What are five rules that every kid should follow at your school, and what do you think should happen if those rules are broken? 
• What do the friends you hang out with most have in common? How are you most like them? How are you different from them?
• What contributes to someone becoming a bully? What can help stop someone from bullying?
• Should we fear failure? Explain.
• Choose an event in your life, and write about it from the perspective of someone else who was there.
• Describe a flavor (salty, sweet, bitter, etc.) to someone who has never tasted it before.
• Glass half-full/half-empty: Write about an event or situation with a positive outlook. Then write about it with a negative outlook.
• Write a texting conversation between two friends who speak every day and know each other better than anyone.
• After home and school, where do you find the strongest feeling of community?
• Should governments do more to discourage people from smoking and vaping?
• Sixth grade is a time of many changes. Describe the changes that have taken place in your life since you started sixth grade. For example, you could write about school, friends, family, or other changes. ( Teachers: Change the grade level as necessary.) 
• You have a computer that can be programmed to do any of the activities you’re normally responsible for. Explain the activities you would or would not assign to the machine, and why. 
• Some say the legal driving age should be lowered from 16 to 14, and some say it should be raised to 18. Explain why you think the legal driving age should be lowered to 14, raised to 18, or left as it is at 16. 
• A door in your school has always been kept locked. One day, as you walk past, you discover the door is open. Write a story about what happens next. 
• What would you like to tell adults in the future about being a young person during this time period?

High School Prompts

• A nonprofit hires you as a consultant to determine how best to use $20 billion to save the world. What’s your plan?
• What’s the worst thing about the internet? 
• How much control over your life do you have? What makes you say that? 
• Describe your ideal life 15 years from now. What is something you can do every day to reach that goal?
• What things do you conscientiously do to feed your brain?
• What are three of your most profound learning experiences? Where and when did they occur?
• Write about your day in five acts, like a Shakespearean play. If your day were a play, what would be the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution?
• You have a difficult decision to make. Describe a conversation you might have with yourself about it.
• Which beliefs and values do you think define American culture? 
• Should everyone go to college?
• What’s more important, practice or performance?
• Is it my job or the teacher’s job to motivate me?
• What is the best measure of human growth?
• Pick two characters from different books you’ve read this year and have them get in an argument about something.
• Which animal would judge us the most? Write a scene (based on truth or fiction) where two or more people are doing something and being observed and criticized by animals.
• Imagine that someone says to you, “Because that’s how we’ve always done it!” Write this out as a scene. (Think: Who said it, what were the circumstances, how did you respond, etc.)
• Is voting too hard in the United States?
• Should politicians be on social media? 

(Sourced from Todd Finley , We Are Teachers , TeachThought , Scholastic , Birmingham City Schools , College Transitions , The New York Times , Monte Syrie , Texthelp , and PBS/KQED’s Above the Noise )

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Picture Prompts

142 Picture Prompts to Inspire Student Writing

A school year’s worth of short, accessible image-driven posts that invite a variety of kinds of writing.

By The Learning Network

We’ve been publishing our Picture Prompts series four days a week since 2016. Below, we’ve rounded up all the prompts we published for the 2023-24 school year.

These short, accessible, image-driven prompts invite students to pen short stories, poems and memoirs; share experiences from their lives; analyze illustrations, graphs and charts; and tell us their opinions on hot-button issues.

You can find even more in our roundups for the 2022-23 , 2021-22 and 2020-21 school years, as well as in our collections of 125 picture prompts for creative and narrative writing and 25 spooky images for writing scary stories .

To learn how you can use Picture Prompts to build literacy skills, promote critical thinking, inspire discussion and foster creativity in your classroom, watch our three-minute tutorial video or our on-demand webinar . For dozens more ideas, see our lesson plan “ How to Teach With Our Picture Prompts (and Other Times Images) .”

If you use this feature with your students, or if you have other ideas for how to use photos, illustrations and graphics to encourage writing, let us know in the comments.

Share experiences from your own life.

Boys and Cologne Soapbox Derby Graphs Old and Young 2,000 Bags Spring Holidays Baking Spring ‘Floor Person’ Checking Your Watch ‘Wild’ Ice Skating Lunar New Year Hot Pot Distracted Walking Breakfast Wild Weather Maps Healthy Habits Holiday Classics Compliments Family Drama Thanksgiving Dinner Libraries Scary Movies Carving Pumpkins Fall Friday the 13th Our Own Language Skydiving Lazy Days Back to School

What story does this image inspire for you?

Falling Into a Hole Friends? Up, Up and Away! Pet Alligator Shadowy Figures Help Fishing in a Stream Tiny House Rats on a Dog Walking Away Public Selfies Hidden Doorway Playing Dominoes Point of No Return Sunset by the Water Valentines Biking Climbing a Ladder Reflections Happy Creatures Snowfall Blindfolded The Red Planet Dog TV Walking Through Town People and Penguins Witches on the Water Spying Show Time! A Wave Goodbye Ancient Arrow A Hand Up Darkened Library The Concert

What do you think this image, chart or cartoon is saying?

Pink Head, Green Check City Street Lapel Buttons One Seat Underwear on a Statue Justices An Elevator Filled With Robots Flying Plastic In a Box Watching Snacks and Drinks Tree Stump Behind Columns Lying in Bed Soccer and Dollars Two People Sitting Package and Globe Hot-Air Balloon Civil Conversation Raking A Shadow Parent and Child Atop a Cellphone The Super Wealthy Brick Wall Eagle and Ropes Painting Blank Space Exercise Football and Bag of Money Worm in an Apple Head in the Clouds

What’s your opinion on this issue?

‘Cowboy Carter’ New Stamp Design Prizewinning Miniature Poodle Cicadas for Dinner Met Gala Student Orchestra Tech in the Classroom Salt Movie Memorabilia 100 Years of Furniture March Madness Texting Styles Concerts Leap Day Broadway Shows Ice Cream Celebrity Feuds A.I.-Generated Faces World’s Largest Cruise Ship Your Energy Playlist Taylor Swift and the N.F.L. In-and-Out Lists Contenders Coveted Cup Your 2024 Most-Anticipated List 2023 in Pictures Style in 2023 $700 Million Deal Dream Décor Skipping School Giving Tuesday Pop-Tart Critic Time Change Pink Jersey Floating Home The Mall Breaking Police Robot Celebrity Relationships Fall Music New iPhone Tiny Homes Floods in Libya Football Season Land, Man and Sky Fall Video Games

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Picture Prompts here.

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Othello Post-Reading Creative Writing Prompts Bundle

Last updated

26 July 2024

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Resources included (5)

Othello by William Shakespeare Act 5 Post-Reading Creative Writing Prompts

Othello by William Shakespeare Act 4 Post-Reading Creative Writing Prompts

Othello by William Shakespeare Act 3 Post-Reading Creative Writing Prompts

Othello by William Shakespeare Act 2 Post-Reading Creative Writing Prompts

Othello by William Shakespeare Act 1 Post-Reading Creative Writing Prompts

mmerse your students in William Shakespeare’s timeless play Othello with our comprehensive post-reading creative prompts bundle. Delve into the intricacies of this thought-provoking tale with meticulously crafted prompts, designed to ignite creativity, deepen literary exploration, and enhance language learning through classic literature.

Engage your students with 50 stimulating prompts in total, covering various themes and pivotal moments across the play’s five acts. Whether used for writing assessments, homework tasks, extension activities, cover lessons, or differentiated learning, these prompts are perfect for inspiring insightful reflections and enriching comprehension of the play’s themes and characters.

Tailored for English classrooms, this bundle provides a versatile toolkit for educators eager to captivate their students with Shakespeare’s compelling narrative. Don’t miss out on this essential resource to elevate your teaching of Othello.

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