Advent Writing Challenge (2021 reprise)

Last year when December began it was a dark and sad time, so I decided to make a poetic Advent Calendar to inspire me to read and write more poetry. Now on the first day of December in 2021 so many things have improved. Yet so many aspects of our world and society have gotten worse and so I lean once more into poetry to guide and inspire me through this season and I invite you to join me and my friends in the #JustWrite Virtual Writing Group as we write through these poetic writing prompts.

The 2020 Advent Writing Challenge poems were chosen with an Advent theme in mind as I selected poems that followed the themes we see in the Christian celebration of Advent such as hope, light, anticipation, and love. The 2021 Advent Writing Challenge poems were chosen to focus on light — specifically the transition from darkness to shadow to light. This is the darkest time of year and yet we see those of both Christian and Jewish faiths celebrate light and light candles against that darkness. I also hope, for me personally, that these poems and writing inspired by them will help me emerge from darkness and shadows into the light. I hope that reading and writing about the darkness will exorcise the shadows haunting me and open my heart and mind to the light. Come write toward the light with me this Advent season.

And the door to our virtual writing group is always open at 7 p.m. Thursday ET. We will write in response to these poems throughout December.