Every month, Switch-Lit releases new story prompts to help launch your next collaborative fiction journey. You can find them on the Switch-Lit “Prompts” page, or revisit our full archive of prompts here on Substack.
This month’s theme: Mother
We’re also officially starting a new tradition of launching monthly prompts with special guest contributors – writers from different creative disciplines (film, music, video games, design, photography, etc.) that reflect our increasingly multi-hyphenate Switch-Lit community.
This month’s special guest prompt contributors:
⚡ Russell Quinn (artist, game designer, and writer)
⚡ Christianne Karefa-Johnson (rapper, actress, and poet)
⚡ Jyllian Gunther (film director, producer, and writer)
Read their personally curated prompts, inspired by the universal theme of “Mother”, and learn more about each of them as unique artists, storytellers, and writers below.
Thanks all,
– Ken
S••L Editor
Prompt 1
Write a story or poem featuring a female protagonist inspired by the youthful or defining experiences of your own mother(s).
by Switch-Lit
Prompt 2 ⚡
This song by John Lennon:
“Mother, you had me
But I never had you.
I, I wanted you
You didn’t want me
So, I
I just got to tell you…”Contributed by Jyllian Gunther
Prompt 3 ⚡
My mother died suddenly when I was just a few months old – at least, that’s what I was always told. But fifty years later, after my lovely father passed away, I received an email from someone claiming to be her.
Contributed by Russell Quinn
Prompt 4 ⚡
I think I hurt my mother.
That feels like getting shot.
I got got
More than a few times over
With this thought:
Did I hurt her? Or not?Contributed by Christianne Karefa-Johnson
Prompt 5
Invite your mother or any maternal figure in your life to write a story or poem together.
by Switch-Lit
About Our Contributors:
Russell Quinn is an artist, designer, and programmer. He works independently as False Vacuum. He was previously employed as McSweeney’s Digital Media Director where he developed their e-book strategy and relaunched their popular humor website. In 2009, he invented the first subscription-based iPhone app in the publishing industry. In 2012, he co-created The Silent History, a Webby Award-winning digital novel for iOS. In 2015, he cocreated The Pickle Index, a story told via a fictional recipe-sharing app. His work has been recognized by the Los Angeles Times, Apple, Sundance, SXSW, Wired, Time, Core77, Creative Review, and the BBC.
Russell left the UK in 2005 and has lived in Denmark, Switzerland, and rural California. He is currently based in Los Angeles and working on Linda & Joan, a narrative video game about the worst year of his life.
Check out a trailer for Linda & Joan below:
…
Christianne Karefa-Johnson, also known as “DoNormaal”, is an American rapper and actress. She emerged on the Seattle music scene in the early 2010s, known for her unique style, blending introspective lyrics with experimental beats. In 2019, NPR highlighted DoNormaal as one of the key figures in the Seattle music scene, calling her a visionary artist pushing the boundaries of hip-hop. She has since left Seattle, reinventing herself between Palm Springs, California and Brooklyn, New York.
Her stage name “DoNormaal” stems from a Dutch expression she learned while studying in Amsterdam meaning, essentially, “cool out”.
Check her out on SoundCloud, follow her on Instagram, or support her latest album PALMSPRINGA via Bandcamp below:
…
Jyllian Gunther is an Emmy-award winning multimedia storyteller for film, television, and radio. She began her career as a staff writer for Nickelodeon and has since become a director, producer, and writer for a variety of documentary series that feature intimate relationships, coming-of-age, and identity – HBO MAX’s rom com series Swiping America, NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, The New Yorker’s series on Amazon The New Yorker Presents, and NPR’s This American Life.
Her first critically-acclaimed documentary Pull Out about her own mother and ex-boyfriends was an official selection of numerous film festivals around the world, and is currently being developed as a television series.
Check out the teaser for her latest independent documentary Sunset & The Mockingbird (currently in post-production) – the love story of Gloria Clayborne and renowned jazz pianist Junior Mance, whose charmed career spans seventy years with memories now deeply compromised by dementia:
If you could pick any writer, artist, or storyteller to contribute a special prompt to Switch-Lit, who would it be? Share your dream contributors, real or imagined, in the comments below and you never know what we might cook up in the future 🔥.