Find inspiration in the work of student artists and writers. At each session of Writing Club, poets and writers from CofC’s MFA program in Creative Writing will offer a series of onsite writing prompts based on pieces from Young Contemporaries. This is an opportunity to generate your own stories and poems in a supportive, serene space, surrounded by visual art. Writing Club is free, and all are welcome.

Writing Club takes place in Halsey Institute galleries on Friday, February 20 & Friday, March 13 3-4 PM. 

Ruby Coppinger, Astral Tides, 2025, Oil on Canvas

Prompt: Write about being stuck in the middle of the ocean, caught in nothing but blue. What do you see? What do you hear? What kind of sea creatures swim around you?

Abby Oakley, Behind the Curtains, 2025, Plaster, cloth, and oil on canvas

Prompt: Write like you are the statue in this fountain, observing everything that is happening behind the curtain.

Samuel Milazzo, Untitled, 2025, Steel

Prompt: Start a story with this line: The stingray flew past me in the bright blue sky.

Danielle Drummond, Awaiting My Transformation, 2025, Oil on canvas

Prompt: Write about a moment in childhood where you were lost in your thoughts, daydreams, etc. You can even elaborate on what those daydreams/thoughts looked like and the colors you would associate with them.

Kaitlyn Steffke, Safe Space, 2025, Welding, wood, camera, thermal printer

Prompt: Write a story from the camera’s point-of-view. Which type of people enter this booth, and what do they confess? How do they look? What is their temperament? What does the camera capture?

Bio: Anjali Chanda is an Emmy Award-winning writer from Massachusetts. She earned a BA in English and sociology from Vanderbilt University in 2022. Anjali has written several fiction manuscripts, all of which delve into the complex, unlikeable narrators. In her free time, you can find her reading library books, wandering a beach, or watching the stars.

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Abby Oakley, The Things She Kept, 2025, Archival digital print

Think of an object you own right now – it can be sentimental or inconsequential.  Write a story from that object’s point of view.  What does the object see every day? What secrets could it tell?

Melody Stone, Underneath it All,

Prompt: Pick a character in the piece (Human, insect or otherwise) and give it a backstory.  How do you think it got to be here? What are they doing in the scene depicted?

Grace Vogt, I Thought it was Fun, 2025, Oil on canvas

Prompt: Write something fun, funny, lighthearted, and/or with no clear direction or point. Write something because you think it’s fun.  Write something that makes you smile.

Bio: Lindsey Copeland is a writer from Greenville, South Carolina. She graduated with her B.A. in English from Lander University in 2011 and is currently a student in the CofC MFA program in Creative Writing. She works at CofC as the Senior Director of Analytics for the CofC Foundation.

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Hayes Martini, Minerva’s Altar,

• Prompt 1: List the habits of a religious practice like that depicted here. Imagine a character who is devoted to that practice. In what ways does that character adhere to these habits and what are potential deviations from that practice? Write a scene or poem about that character.
• Prompt 2: How are common religious practices experienced by individuals as something unique to their own experience? Write a scene or poem where a religious practice deviates from what is “normal.”
• Prompt 3: How do religious items, relics, and trinkets define a person? What can we learn about a person from what they hold sacred? Write a scene or poem where a description of these objects reveals something deeper about the object’s owner.

Hayes Martini, Peter Popoff’s Miracle Spring Water

• Prompt 1: Write a scene from the POV of a devout follower of a questionable religious practice.
• Prompt 2: Write a scene from the POV of a religious leader who is deliberately misleading their followers.

Bio: Carson Oliver is a writer from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He is pursuing his MFA in fiction at the College of Charleston, where he is working on a novel called Recreation.

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Ella Waldron-Noren, November 13, 2025, etching

Ella Waldron-Noren, July 10, 2025, etching

Prompt: Write a story utilizing the different seasons of the year. Try to imagine the different expectations, anxieties, or surprises that may come from those seasons. Include two characters in a scene with conflicting thoughts on whatever seasons you choose. (For example: John loves fall for the football; Jane hates it for the cold.)

Bio: Leslie Cox was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina and received a BFA in English at Clemson University while also obtaining a minor in screenwriting. He is a first-year student in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the College of Charleston.

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Julia Belk, Thomas, 2025, Oil on canvas

• Prompt 1: Think of a place where you feel the most comfortable to create and then write a 500 word scene about a recurring daydream you have.
  • Examples:
    • You are a rockstar playing in front of thousands of people.
    • You are being interviewed on a popular late night television show.
    • You are present during a moment in history and your role is
    • Begin by placing yourself or your character in a specific place and time, and then describe the character beginning to daydream.

• Prompt 2: Place yourself in the subject’s shoes (you are sitting in that chair) and describe an out of body experience. (Maybe it’s yours or Thomas’)

Kaitlyn Steffke, Safe Space, 2025, Welding, wood, camera, thermal printer

Prompt: Write about something you don’t want to talk about. For example, what is a secret that no one else knows, or what is something about you that you feel is misunderstood? You may try starting with this line: I’ve never told anyone this before, but —

Ruby Coppinger, Astral Tides, 2025, Oil on Canvas

Prompt: Think of a landscape and write a 300-word story/scene/moment about the state of awe. For example, a sunset, the ocean, NASA photos of other planets, etc.

Bio: Ebony Watson is a writer and first-year student in the College of Charleston MFA Program in Creative Writing.