Writers Workshop: Creative Prompts for the Year of the Fire Horse

& What I've Been Up To Lately

Happy Lunar New Year, Ampersanders! I don’t know about you all but I’m thrilled to have (hopefully) shed what no longer serves me and left the skin of it all behind. The Year of the Fire Horse starts today and I sense a restlessness in the air. A sense of things wanting to move, even if the shape of that movement isn’t clear yet.

The year we’ve just come through, the Year of the Snake, required a different energy. Sure, there were seismic shifts for me (like getting married!). For the most part though, last year was slower and the biggest changes were internal. I’ve spent a lot of the last 12 months noticing what has grown too tight, too heavy, too habitual. & I guess that’s how snake years work: they aren’t about spectacle or achievement and the process of shedding is seldom graceful. It’s usually awkward, sometimes painful, and often invisible to anyone else. But the you that is carried forward emerges lighter and more aligned.

In the Chinese zodiac, each year is shaped not just by …