Think of "prompts" — visual or prose snippets or abstracts — as inspirations to spark your own writing, or as invitations to explore particular themes or ideas.

There are (31) cards to cover use for a full month, however, if the deck is shuffled repeatedly and added to, it becomes a renewable resource for creative adventure. Sit down at your desk, flip a card (or two!) and see what comes up for you on the page.

Decks can also be used for group exploration through dealing cards, shuffling them, sharing them, or finding new ways to "play" them at writing conferences, in classrooms and groups, to keep the generative work going.

The deck is open-ended. Folks are welcome and encouraged to create and add their own cards and prompts. The cards in the prosa scintilla are standard tarot size.

This deck was created by Michael Todd Cohen, writer and visual artist, via a process of abstract exploration using India inks, pipettes, pen, rubbing alcohol, and brushes. Prose prompts were written to encourage internal exploration and external wonder and were coupled with the visual work in four groups of cards.

The exploratory and creative production process took about 40-50 hours to complete before moving into off-site print production.

Architectures

A group made of foundations, shapes, homes and hiding places

Matter

A group made of made-objects, natural and manufactured

Proto

A group made of instincts, ferality and physicality

Cosmos

A group made of philosophy, curiosity, belief and star stuff

Prosa Scintilla

There are three "prose spark" cards in the deck, colored orange. Their back is blank so that you can add a prompt of your own, or use the appearance of this card to take a rest, add another card to the prompt, or another surprise that will keep the spark burning for you.

Prosa Scintilla means "prose spark" or "sparkling prose" in Latin and represents the intention at the heart of the deck to spark creation through artistic communion.