Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Cagnaccio di San Pietro

Woman in the Mirror, by Cagnaccio di San Pietro (Italy). 1927.

Ekphrastic Writing Challenge

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Xavier Mellery writing challenge, which ends today. Accepted responses will be published on October 23, 2018.

The prompt this time is Woman in the Mirror, by Cagnaccio di San Pietro. Deadline is November 2, 2018.

Everyone can participate! Try something new if you've never written from visual art before and discover why there are so many of us devotees. Ekphrastic writing helps artists and lovers of art to look more carefully, from different angles or mindsets, at visual art. And it helps writers discover new ways of approaching their work, their experiences, and writing itself. 

The rules are simple.

The Rules

1. Use this prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the painting or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like.

3. Have fun.

4. Send only your best results to [email protected]. 

5. Include CAGNACCIO DI SAN PIETRO WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line in all caps please, so that your submission doesn't get lost in the sea of emails. Mislabelled or unlabelled emails end up in with regular submissions, which are viewed in chronological order of receipt and not considered for the challenge. Submissions discovered after the deadline due to omission of subject line will be discarded.

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your poem. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing.

7. Deadline is November 2, 2018.

8. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

9. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

​10. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!