Writing Prompt
Pier 21 Prompts
Third Prompt: Birthday
Today is my 28th birthday. It’s a nice, even number and there’s still a two year buffer between me and 30.
It’s 9:30 pm as I’m writing this from our little Airbnb on a farm in a rural part of the Netherlands. This morning, I woke up to the sound of bleating sheep and opened the window to see our hosts’ lovely farmhouse, covered by a thick, thatched roof.
We took two buses to get to Giethoorn — a sweet little village that I had come across on Instagram a couple of times. I was enthralled by the idea of renting a boat and cruising past the lovely homes and gardens with the Shire theme running through my mind, but equally wary that there might be too many tourists. The compromise? Going in the off season! My partner and I had the canals almost completely to ourselves. It was a bit cold at 11 degrees Celsius, but the man we rented the boat from kindly provided us with blankets.
My partner and I took turns playing captain and photographer. I hoped for a nautical adventure for my birthday and I got it.
Afterwards, we headed to a café to warm up with some hot chocolate and the waiter serenaded me with a joyous rendition of “Happy birthday.” He treated me to a massive slice of stroopwaffel cake and gifted me a wooden tulip, saying,
“This flower won’t die and you will remember this birthday forever!”
I must say, I have to agree.
So in light of my birthday, I’d like to open up this month’s Pier 21 Prompt on the topic of birthdays.
Last month, we specifically explored limericks (more on the wonderful results below!) and this month, I’d love for us to delve into fiction and/or personal essay. It was also requested by our writer Chaudhry Writes. who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Medium Pub Crawl!
Write about a birthday, either one of your own or one that is fictional. I thought about Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel, Ms. Dalloway, which details one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a party that she will host in the evening.
You could write flash fiction involving a birthday party, or discuss what birthdays mean to you, for example. Are they beautiful, painful, bittersweet, or cringey?
There is no specific word count, however, no poetry will be accepted for this prompt, but we’ll absolutely have more poetry prompts in the future!
Thank you to everyone who submitted nautical limericks last month! I was blown away by your creativity and I think many of you surprised yourselves as well.
Annida brought us three limericks of maritime misadventures:
I was delighted to see that Janaka Stagnaro experienced a renaissance of limerick writing! He not only responded to the Pier 21 Prompt, but published multiple collections on other publications.
Although not on a nautical theme, Michael Vorhis’ collection of limericks are wonderfully humorous:
Simon Jung crafted a heartbreaking tale through three interwoven limericks:
Doodleslice accepted the challenge and delivered “A Tragic Tetrad of Limericks.”
And Flaminia D. skillfully combined fiction and limericks:
I look forward to reading your birthday stories! Please use the tag ‘Writing Prompt Response’ or ‘Prompt’ and the type of submission ‘Fiction/Personal Essay’.
Please remember to include a link to this post at the bottom of your submission so other people can find the prompt!
Additionally, if you enjoyed or were inspired by other writers’ responses, I encourage you to tag their stories so more people can find them.
I will be posting my own response in a separate story this week. Here was my multi-limerick response, complete with a punny title I once read on a soap bottle:
