Leap Write In!

Writing is inspired by life, and life can be understood through writing. Get your writing to flow off the page by exploring the inner treasures of your life. This book presents an inward-bound adventure-a way to shake things up from the inside and unleash what you most need and want to say. Leap Write In!is a passport to the wild country of your expanding heart and widening imagination. Stamped on these pages are the exercises, ideas, and prompts that will help you to explore all the wacky, confusing, brave, soul-stirring wonderings and wanderings of your life in a way that will unleash your writing. The ideas, experiments, exercises, and lessons include: ON-THE-SPOT DROPS that offer quick "free-fall" prompts on different themes, such as short-winded poems and seven-line stories SURPRISE-YOURSELF SURVEYS for those who think they know everything about themselves STORY STANZAS that explore feelings and states of being like Fear, Compassion, Kindness, Anxiety, Anger, Jealousy, Happiness, and so on UNTIE-YOUR-MIND WORD LISTS to jump-start stalled imaginations MINI MEMOIRS to unlock personal stories DEFINITION DECODERS to introduce new ideas and styles of writing Here you'll find all of the inspiration you need to create one-of-a-kind poems, stories, imaginative fragments, and real-life on-the-spot sketches to share, or not. Take a breath, relax, reset, and leap write in!

Karen Benke has inspired children—and even a few adults—in the art of creative writing for over twenty years as a Poet in the Schools, writing coach, and visiting author.  She specializes in leading on-the-spot creative writing workshops and has been known to get even the most reluctant writer to reach for a pen.  Her poetry has appeared in many anthologies and national literary journals (Ploughshares, Rattle, Hawaii Pacific Review, Poetry Daily) and her books have been featured in FamilyFun magazine, The San Francisco Book Review, Kids' Book Review (Australia) and elsewhere.  The recipient of two teaching grants from Poets & Writers and residencies from Djerassi Resident Artists Program and Hedgebrook, she runs The Writers Nest and lives north of the Golden Gate Bridge with her teenage son, magic cat Clive, and rescue dog Rasco Roon.  Visit her virtually at www.karenbenke.com.