SNS | 8-30-25
Join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic readings
Featuring: Rob Macaisa Colgate + Brendan Constantine
Theme: Games
(scroll down for writing prompt)
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday, August 30, 2025
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List
The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 864 3529 3101
Passcode: 546291
Author Bios
Rob Macaisa Colgate (he/she/they) is a disabled bakla poet and playwright. A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts and 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, he is the author of the poetry collection Hardly Creatures (Tin House, 2025) and the verse drama My Love is Water (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025). The managing poetry editor at Foglifter, he lives on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires in what is commonly known as Chicago.
Buy Rob’s books here: https://www.robmacaisacolgate.com/books
Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in many of the nation’s standards, including Poetry, The Nation, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly, and Poem-a-Day. Recent collections include ‘Dementia, My Darling’ (2016) from Red Hen Press and ‘Bouncy Bounce’ (2018) a chapbook from Blue Horse Press. He has received support and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, TED ED, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. Brendan teaches at the Windward School and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His latest book ‘The Opposites Game’ is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2026 and is available for preorder now.
Buy Brendan’s books here: https://brendanconstantine.com/bookstore/
Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!
LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!
Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, August 23, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.
Write-In Details/ Sign Up
August Writing Prompt: Games
It’s game time! Let’s play! This month’s theme is open to all kinds of games—board games, word games, sports games, card games, video games, slot machines, political games, lotteries, childhood games, game night, Squid Games, Game of Thrones, dating games, bingo, bedroom games, mind games, game shows, murder mystery games… you get the idea. There are no rules. But nobody wins at strip go-fish.
SOME IDEAS
Write about a current hobby, childhood game or sport you loved or hated, won or lost, or weren’t allowed to play—the Barbie you couldn’t have, the team you weren’t picked for.
Tag, You’re It. Write a chase poem. Each line or sentence should push the action forward until someone is caught—or no one is.
Create a whimsical piece using Oulipian contraints such as S +7 or an e-excluding lipogram
Brendan Constantine’s Opposites Game asks “what is the opposite of a gun?” In “We Do Not Enter the Gallery” Rob Macaisia Colgate frames truth in terms of its opposite. To play your own version of this game, try flipping a cliché, idiom, or truth on its head until the meaning transforms into something strange or profound. Or write in terms of impossible opposites.
Write about a memorable game night or sporting event you attended
Write about cheating in a game, at life, in love, in politics.
Write about dating games—literal or psychological, yours or someone else’s, real or reality TV
Write about a competition in which winning feels like losing, or losing feels like winning. This could be about sports, romance, politics, or an internal battle.
Write about rules—social rules, parental rules, governmental rules, rules for being a person, rules for a real or imaginary game. The rules can be absurd, sinister, beautiful, or heartbreakingly unfair.
Imagine life as a game or simulation—Sims, D&D, Candy Crush, Monopoly, Checkers, dice, or something only you could invent. Who’s holding the controller? Who’s pulling your strings?
Write about the end game, the Hail Mary, the bases loaded, the nuke, the checkmate. Borrow from chess, sports, relationships, war games, or apocalypse scenarios. Focus on what happens when the pieces are few, the clock is almost out, and every move matters.
Write about a game rigged from the start—either in your favor or against you. Who set it up this way? What happens when you realize it?
Instructions Missing—Imagine opening a game box and finding only the pieces—no instructions. Your piece could be the chaotic game you invent on the spot, or the confusion, arguments, and alliances that erupt instead.
Or something else! As ever, the prompt is optional, just a few ideas to jump start your pen.
INSPIRATION
The Opposites Game by Brendan Constantine
This is an animated video version of the poem produced by TED-Ed as part of its series "There's a Poem for That"
We Do Not Enter the Gallery by Rob Macaisa Colgate
Game by Laura Kasischke
Diogenes Invents a Game by Mary Karr
Khaleesi Says by Leah Umansky
The End Game of Bloom by Deborah Landau
Sims: The Game by Elizabeth Spires
A Dream of Games by Josephine Jacobsen
War Machines Dress Up as Drag Queens by Mohammed El-Kurd
As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game by Yesenia Montilla
Game Prayer by Al Ortolani
Dogmatic Statement concerning the Game of Chess: Theme for a Series of Pictures by Ezra Pound
Fun and Games with a Sphere by Ko Un
Sideline Poetry by Sam Cohen
Poetry series assembled from the conversations overheard at children’s soccer games
Write More: If you like the SNS writing prompts, consider signing up for my subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets. Learn more and sign up for inspiration, accountability, and community!