Edited by Christine Malvasi
   Foreword by Stephen Dunn
   Illustrations by David Sipress

Full Book Description
 

Sample Writing Prompt

Joisey
Adapted from Challenges for the Delusional

"Susan, we thought you wuz dead."
   "I was. I was in Joisey."
       ~ Desperately Seeking Susan

"Not going to New Jersey isn't procrastinating. It's common sense."
       ~ Igby Goes Down

Poetry Assignment

Fiction Alternative  |  Memoir Alternative

Write a poem set in New Jersey, real or imagined, about a difficult relationship. Refer to the whole state or to just one part of it that you find weird, wired or wonderful. Consider the difference between the typical and the stereotypical New Jersey. Name names. Be specific and visionary.

Requirements
Support, repeat or argue against one or more of the items from "New Jersey Facts and Trivia."

Variation
Write about another state (or city or place) that you may know better or have more attitude about. Or Warp it. Personify New Jersey so it fights back, talks trash to New York, Pennsylvania and its other vain siblings.

Challenge for the Delusional
Refer to a New Jersey joke, reality TV scenario, or movie quotation.

Fiction Alternative
Write a story which involves a chance encounter with one of these New Jersey natives:

Jack Nicholson  -  Bruce Springsteen -  Bon Jovi  -  Redman -  Paul Robeson
Naughty by Nature  -  Sugar Hill Gang  -  Jason Alexander  -  Queen Latifah
Judy Blume  -  Susan Sarandon  -  Aaron Burr  -  Alexander Hamilton
Whitney Houston  -  Eddie Money  -  Frank Sinatra  -  Grover Cleveland
Woodrow Wilson  -  Walt Whitman  -  Bruce Willis  -  William Carlos Williams
Allen Ginsberg  -  Meryl Streep

Memoir Alternative
Write about the first time you saw the ocean. Discover something you didn't know you knew.

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