Key

NaPoWriMo #11, plus a note on my third anniversary on Substack, where things are heading, and a preview of the April 15th One Hundred-Word Wonders writing prompt.

Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own erasure/blackout poem. You could use a page from a favorite book, a magazine, what have you. It can be especially fun to play with a book you don’t know, particularly one that deals with an unfamiliar topic. If you’d like to go that route, maybe you’ll find something of interest in the thousands of scanned books at the Internet Archive? Feel free to maintain the whitespace of the original text (as is traditional for erasures/blackouts . . . if anything can be called traditional about them) or to pluck words/phrases from your chosen source material and rearrange them.

Wow! This was difficult! The easiest method for me was printing out the text, finding, and circling phrases that seemed to go together. Then writing out the phrases I had chosen and deleting some words I thought unnecessary.

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fresh in your memory,
all your “finds.”

some species exceedingly shy,
obscurely marked,
so alike
it is hard to distinguish.

a few remained enigmas
for years;
provoking glimpses
of some nymph-like bird,
its true place
in the avian system.

the gun has gone out of vogue.
the glass has taken its place.
a hungry rambler
is not an acute observer.

through brier and bush,
through bog,
upon your knees,
even flinging yourself upon the ground
to spy
a wary bird
flitting in the copse.

~~~
Erasure/Blackout Source: Our Bird Comrades, pp. 14–17 (public domain)

Prompt Inspiration

Via NaPoWriMo

Erasure poetry — also known as blackout poetry — is written by taking an existing text and erasing or blacking out individual words. Here’s a great explainer with examples, and you’ll find another here. Some folks have written whole books of erasures/blackouts, including Chase Berggrun’s R E D (which is based on Dracula), Jen Bervin’s Nets (which is based on Shakespeare’s sonnets), and what is one of the grand-daddies of erasures as a form, Ronald Johnson’s Radi Os (which is based on Paradise Lost).

Author’s Note

Three Years In

April 11, 2026

Three years ago this week, I posted for the first time on Substack. I didn’t know if I’d last three months.

I lasted three years. Every week, mostly. And I’m proud of that, genuinely. But I’ve been writing weekly long enough to know when the pace is running ahead of what I actually have to say.

So here’s what’s changing.

At some point this year—fall, most likely—I’ll wind down the weekly schedule. After that, posts will come every two weeks, at first, anyway. That might shift. I’ll tell you when it does.

Part of why: some of you may remember that back in October 2024, I mentioned starting a children’s book, almost as a surprise to myself. That book became five.

It’s a series about a girl named Faith, who spends years being afraid of nearly everything, until a group of girls her age changes that. It grew out of a reunion with women I’ve known since high school, whose friendships came back to me all at once, reminding me what it feels like to be seen. I’m working to get the series published traditionally, and that process is slow and asks for a different kind of attention than weekly posts do. I want to give it what it needs.

I’m not going anywhere. I’m still writing. I just need the work to breathe a little more.

Thank you for reading. Three years of it. That still surprises me.

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Upcoming…

• April’s writing prompt:

  One Hundred-Word Wonders, 15 April 2026

  This year, every prompt will come directly from movie titles.

  For those who want a head start, this month’s prompt is: SINNERS. Write in exactly 100 words, a story, poem, or creative non-fiction in any genre, using the prompt. Pieces should be exactly 100 words, no more or less. The 100-word count does not include the title. Hold your piece until the 15th!

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