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When women win literary awards for fiction it’s usually for writing from a male perspective and/or about men. The more prestigious the award, the more likely the subject of the narrative will be male.

–Nicola Griffith, introducing her analysis of 15 years’ results of literary prizes

1.

Find an old family photo, perhaps one pasted in a scrapbook or set in a frame filmed with dust. Is there a man in the photo? Write about him.

2.

Persuade your male lover Louise Colet (or whatever you call your male lover—I call mine Louise Colet) to send you confessional emails from which you can steal material for your novel-in-progress, and then every time you reply to Louise, make sure to reiterate what a motherfucking genius you are.

3.

Write a short story from the point-of-view of a babysitter who one summer night witnesses something she never expected to see in her life, and then do a “find and replace” in your Word doc until each instance of “babysitter” becomes “Navy SEAL.”