Our latest  home prompt really brought back memories:
Were you ever in a contest or competition? What prompted you to participate? What made the experience meaningful to you? 
    In 1983 I ran the Boston Marathon.
    It all started in 1977. I was 48 years old, one year shy of the age of my father when he died of a heart attack. Frightened because he and both of his sisters all died before 50 of heart problems, I started jogging, [ ... ]

    How does it all come together? Take a remembered comment about Cancer at a Writing For Cancer meeting, add a rereading of the myth of Pandora, throw in a newletter from City of Hope, and you have a poem:
                         Pandora’s Box of Cancer
With cancer comes your own personal Pandora’s Box,
Full of pain, full of grief, and designed by Zeus just for you.
Radiation, Chemo, Anxiety and Depression fly out of that box,
Trying to conquer you, trying to overwhelm you.
But keep [ ... ]

If you had the power to bring three people back to life, from a list of everyone that has ever lived on this earth,
                  1. who would they be?
                  2. how did you decide?
This was a  writing prompt at a recent WFW meeting. Selections ranged from a family dog, to late President John F Kennedy. These were my selections:
    My son John, who died of a drug overdose 20 years ago. I’d like him to have a reprieve from his one, huge mistake.
    The next [ ... ]

At a recent WFW meeting I gave a writing prompt which was general enough to allow each participant to take it just about anywhere. One of the newer members had difficulties because the prompt was not specific enough for her. She wanted very exact instructions on the subject matter she was to write about. I was reminded of a tightly wrapped rose bud that has the possibility of blooming, of opening up wide, to welcoming in the sunlight. That rose bud needs nurturing [ ... ]

As part of one lesson, I ask students to think about a family incident or story that has been on their minds. Some of their stories deal with conflicts that came with the trials and frustrations of cancer diagnosis and treatment. I often tell about the son of one of my closest friends who said he felt it was “too depressing” to visit his father in the hospital where he was battling cancer. When the father recovered, their relationship had [ ... ]