This week, your assignment is simple. Write 20 first lines. Make them progressively more interesting.

This week, dear writers, your assignment is to write the thoughts of a character who is on the cusp of making a very difficult decision. What led up to this moment in time? What are the choices this person faces? Why is this decision so particularly difficult?

This week, your assignment is to write a character sketch. But not just any character sketch–write one about a character in the show Mad Men. It can be for a character who is currently in the show, or you can make up a character whom you think might fit in.

Humans have a unique relationship with the animal kingdom. We keep pets, we take our kids to the zoo, we seek them out sometimes in their own natural habitat.
Although the fable is essentially a dead literary genre (when was the last time a book of fables graced the NY Times Best Sellers list?), humans have [...]

Mirrors and reflections play an important role in our lives. Most of us look in them every day, sometimes multiple times a day. We check our clothes, our hair, our makeup. We seek to ensure that our outward appearance signifies the person we want to be.
Yet as the revered poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:
These faces [...]