Prompt to Page Authors

These authors have appeared on the Prompt to Page writing podcast!

Each month, a JCPL librarian interviews a published writer about their favorite writing prompt. Whether you’re just getting started or have written for years, you’ll find ideas and advice to inspire you and help you become a better writer.

Updated February 21, 2024
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Praisesong for the kitchen ghosts : stories and recipes from five generations of black country cooks
Wilkinson, Crystal
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . A lyrical culinary journey that explores the hidden legacy of Black Appalachians, throughpowerful storytelling alongside nearly forty comforting recipes, from the former poetlaureate of Kentucky."With Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts,...
Perfect Black
Wilkinson, Crystal
2022 NAACP Image Award Winner Crystal Wilkinson combines a deep love for her rural roots with a passion for language and storytelling in this compelling collection of poetry and prose about girlhood, racism, and political awakening, imbued with vivid imagery of growing up in...
Drowned town
Waldrop, Jayne Moore
"They had been told their sacrifice was for the public good. They were never told how much they would miss it, or for how long." Drowned Town explores the multigenerational impact caused by the loss of home and illuminates the joys and sorrows of a group of people bound...
The animators : a novel
Whitaker, Kayla Rae
"A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth . . . That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition, and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply deeply funny is a testament to Kayla Rae Whitaker's formidable gifts. I was so sorry to...
Who we lost : a portable COVID memorial
Greenwald, Martha (Poet)
Who We Lost is the first book that directly acknowledges the free-floating grief of the COVID-bereaved, affirms that it must be addressed, and offers a purposeful activity that respects mourners as well as the mourned.  In 2020, Martha Greenwald invited mourners to...
Forever is now
Lockington, Mariama
SCHNEIDER FAMILY BOOK AWARD WINNER ● A poignant and lyrical young adult novel-in-verse about a Black teen coming of age in an anxiety-inducing world, from the author of For Black Girls Like Me and In the Key of Us. I'm safe here. ...
In the key of us
Lockington, Mariama
Stonewall Book Awards--Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Honor Book From the author of the critically acclaimed novel For Black Girls Like Me and the Schneider Family Book Award Winner Forever Is Now, comes a coming-of-age story...
The pearl
Reisz, Tiffany
When Lord Arthur Godwick learns his younger brother is up to his bollocks in debt to Regan Ferry, owner of The Pearl Hotel, he agrees to work off the tab?in her bed. Soon the handsome but troubled Arthur discovers he's a pawn in an erotic game of revenge-and nothing, including his lover, is what it...
The lucky ones
Reisz, Tiffany
They called themselves "the lucky ones" They were seven children either orphaned or abandoned by their parents and chosen by legendary philanthropist and brain surgeon Dr. Vincent Capello to live in The Dragon, his almost magical beach house on the Oregon Coast. Allison was the youngest...
The girl singer : poems
Worthington, Marianne
Feminism, Appalachian culture, and country music: three threads beautifully woven into one in Marianne Worthington's poetry collection The Girl Singer. The poet grew up in urban Appalachia, listening to country and folk music and letting it live within her. The speakers in The...
Mr. & Mrs. Witch : a novel
Bond, Gwenda
In Mr. & Mrs. Witch, the next novel from bestselling author Gwenda Bond, a couple discovers at the altar the surprising secret identities they've kept from each other. Savannah Wilde is a witch, a very powerful one--an identity that only her fellow witches know....
Suspicious minds
Bond, Gwenda
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * If you think you know the truth behind Dr. Brenner's experiments at Hawkins Laboratory, prepare to have your mind turned Upside Down in the first official Stranger Things novel--"the prequel story that fans have been waiting for" (Kirkus Reviews<...
A dark room in Glitter Ball City : murder, secrets, and scandal in Old Louisville
Dominé, David
This true crime saga--with an eccentric Southern backdrop--introduces the reader to the story of a murder in a crumbling Louisville mansion and the decades of secrets and corruption that live within the old house's walls. On June 18, 2010, police discover a body buried in the...
True Ghost Stories and Eerie Legends from America's Most Haunted Neighborhood
Domine, David
The most haunted neighborhood in America? That's what many are calling Old Louisville, an extensive preservation district with hundreds of old mansions and beautiful homes in Kentucky's largest city. Wherever you go in this eye-popping neighborhood, it seems that a haunted house is not far away. Or...
Football triple threat
Maddox, Jake
Michael has the speed to be a great wide receiver, but he struggles to consistently catch passes. The defensive coach sees potential in Michael's speed and has him try his hand at defensive back. Then the head coach puts Michael on special teams to return kicks. Michael is grateful for all of the...
Lacrosse legend
Maddox, Jake
Eager to follow in his father's footsteps, Ramon Hill wants nothing more than to be a starting attacker on his lacrosse team. But his dreams don't go as planned, and he's moved to a different position. Playing as a midfielder lets Ramon put his skills and talent to best use, but he can't help but...
Breakfast Served Anytime
Combs, Sarah.
A coming-of-age debut evokes the bittersweet joys and pangs of finding independence in one unforgettable summer away at "geek camp." When Gloria sets out to spend the summer before her senior year at a camp for gifted and talented students, she doesn't know quite what to...
Lost Girls: Short Stories
Morris, Ellen Birkett
Lost Girls is a collection of stories that explores the experiences of women and girls as they grieve, find love, face uncertainty, take a stand, find their future and say goodbye to the past. It is a chronicle of the female experience at a time when the experiences of women and girls are being...
Second Skin
Stoykova, Katerina
Mermaids don't run track
Dadey, Debbie.
The running coach at Camp Lone Wolf is a beautiful woman who looks just like the mermaid the kids have seen in a picture. Will the campers run across the truth as they practise for the big running race?
Martians don't take temperatures
Dadey, Debbie.
The Bailey School kids are suspicious of the new school nurse, whose bright green bandages seem to have an instant healing effect.
Feel the Bern
Shaffer, Andrew
Who knew fighting for a living wage could be so deadly? Bernie Sanders and his Gen Z intern are drawn into a murder investigation in a small Vermont town in this hilarious spin on cozy mysteries from the New York Times bestselling author of Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery<...
Secret Santa
Shaffer, Andrew
The Office meets Stephen King, dressed up in holiday tinsel, in this fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the '80s, by New York Times best-selling satirist Andrew Shaffer. Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is...
Two brown dots
Quintos, Danni
Selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, Danni Quintos carves a space for brown girls and weird girls in her debut collection of poems. Two Brown Dots explores what it means to be a racially ambiguous, multiethnic, Asian American...
When stars rain down : a novel
Jackson-Brown, Angela
Opal is an eighteen-year-old Black woman working as a housekeeper in a small Southern town in the 1930s--and then the Klan descends. A moving story that confronts America's tragic past, When Stars Rain Down is both heartwarming and heart-wrenching. The summer of 1936 in...
Wake the bones
Kilcoyne, Elizabeth
"YA horror has found a new standard-bearer." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Dark, gripping, and gorgeous, Wake the Bones will lead you into the woods and keep you up late. As lush and sweltering as a Kentucky summer... Elizabeth Kilcoyne is a force." -...
Where I can't follow : a novel
Blooms, Ashley
"Haunting and hopeful...a magic so vivid it feels more like a memory than a work of fiction."--Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches NAMED A MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK BY Good Housekeeping, Gizmodo, Den of Geek, Tor.com, and more! Walk through...
Every bone a prayer
Blooms, Ashley
"Blooms has taken the voice and names of Appalachia, tended, and evolved them, and created a book that is at once haunting and hopeful."--NPR Praised by BuzzFeed, Good Housekeeping, POPSUGAR, Bustle, and more! Misty's holler looks like any of the thousands of hollers that fork...
I loved you in another life
Arnold, David
A USA Today bestseller! A poignant love story about two teens whose souls come together time and again through the ages--for fans of Nina LaCour and Matt Haig. Evan Taft has plans. Take a gap year in Alaska, make sure his little brother and single mother...
Mosquitoland
Arnold, David
"Top-notch" --USA Today "Illuminating" --Washington Post "A breath of fresh air" --Entertainment Weekly "Memorable" --People   After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in...
The navigating fox
Rowe, Christopher
The Navigating Fox is a fantastical fable of "knowledgeable creatures", in the vein of Brian Jacques's Redwall series but for adults, by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Christopher Rowe "Half fable, half caper, and a pure joy to read."--Holly Black, New York Times<...
These prisoning hills
Rowe, Christopher
These Prisoning Hills is a post-apocalyptic Appalachian "weird fiction" novella by Hugo and Nebula Award nominee Christopher Rowe. "Haunting and heartfelt, violent and vibrant."--Alix E. Harrow Deallocate all implications, Fortran harrows...
The revolutionary spirit in France and America
Fačy, Bernard
Tell Me What You See is a collection of ten experimental short stories about coronavirus quarantines, climate change, the January 6th invasion on the US Capitol, and other events from 2020-2021. Written in both word and image, pieces from the collection have been called "&...
The Occupation
McCoy, Jay
In these formally assured, richly alive poems, Jay McCoy shows us the body untamed, 'brimming / with sweat' and 'musk-ripe, ' driven by hunger and need, slipping beyond will and art. I admire these poems for their candor, their exuberant lyricism, their grief, their vibrant, queer vernacular. The...

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