Sometimes the hardest part of writing is getting started. If you would like to write a poem, essay, or short story for Elysium, but you are struggling to come up with a place to start, take a look at the prompts below. They are here as a guide, concepts to kickstart your own ideas. Feel free to change them or interpret them however you wish. We look forward to reading what you create.

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January: The Self Reimagined

• Each morning, your reflection shifts to show not who you are, but who you could become depending on your choices that day. Write about a day when the reflection offers a version of yourself that terrifies—or inspires—you.

• Your future self sends a single message back in time. Write the story of what it says—and how the present version of you must reinterpret (or resist) that guidance.

• Write a scene twice: first from your own perspective, then from another character’s perspective. Explore how identity shifts depending on who is watching.

• Write about a time when you acted differently than you felt. Why did you hide that part of yourself? What would happen if you showed the real you?

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December: The Past Reimagined

• A moment from your childhood returns to you—but this time, you see it through the eyes of someone else who was there. What changes? What stays the same?

• You discover an old journal written by a younger version of yourself, only the entries don’t match your memories. Write about confronting the version of the past the journal insists is true.

• A character is granted one hour to revisit a single moment from their past. How does this moment help define who they became? How would they change that moment if they could?

• Your family tells a story over and over, but each generation alters it. Write all the versions and reveal what each one says about the teller.

• Two characters remember the same relationship completely differently. Write a scene that shows both memories unfolding side by side.