I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to introduce Kurt Vonnegut to Exclusive Ink, although it might be more appropriate to say that we simply re-introduced him to Shortridge High School. Vonnegut actually went there, and so did his father. He wrote for the school newspaper and then went on to become one of America’s most imaginative and celebrated writers. Often combining humor with social criticism, Vonnegut painted modern landscapes through a speculative lens. He asked us to consider our present by considering the future and the past — sometimes all three at once.

He continues to be an inspiration for a lot of our work as mentors in our own writing, so we wanted to share that with the students. It wasn’t much of a surprise when we got some truly imaginative works of fiction and poetry about all sorts of futuristic worlds.

To see the exercise, click here for the PDF, and be sure to check out our regularly updated archive of fiction and poetry exercises by clicking on the Writing Exercises tab at the top.

For more information on Kurt Vonnegut, here are a few related links:
Biography from the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library
“Harrison Bergeron” and “The Big Trip Up Yonder” – the stories that inspired this prompt