Whether you’re a writing teacher looking for some cool new writing prompts or a writer in need of a jump start, these five titles recommended by our TBAWP TC’s are guaranteed to get pens and pencils pouncing on the paper and fingers flying across the keys.
A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words: Image-Driven Story Prompts
and Exercises for Writers
by Phillip Sexton
Not only does every other page have a photograph that alone can get you started, the corresponding page has writing tips, directions for getting starting, and sometimes even lesson ideas. Teachers, this is a solid buy for really quick-starters to open lessons and unlike so many books on writing, yes, you can just hand this to a student and let them look through it. Writers, some of these photographs are so unique you can’t help but the visceral, knee-jerk reaction that sends you flying to your journal.
The Writer’s Block: 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your 
Imagination
by Jason Rekulak
This literal BLOCK will sit on your desk and dare you to give up. Thinking about getting stuck? There’s no false advertising here. With picture writing prompts, some nicely simple one-word writing prompts, advice from famed authors that will send you out to buy their novels or their books on writing, and (teachers) some really unique lessons, this fat little book will take your writing or your writing teaching to the next level. Mine is flagged with so many post-its, it’s hard to open.
300 Writing Prompts
by Piccadilly
Looking for what to write and a place to write it? This journal, with a prompt at the top of each of its 300 pages is a great gift for a burgeoning writer (trust me, I have two!) and with solid starters you just might be finding that a page isn’t enough. Not the best for experienced writers as anyone who’s taken a couple creative writing courses (or camps, wink wink nudge nudge) will have seen many of these before, but an essential to any Writer Starter Kit.
The Pocket Muse
by Monica Wood
Think yourself more advanced? Seen it all? Tired of books on writing or about writing or trying to get you writing? Well set your ego aside and pick up The Pocket Muse. This book has some of the tried-and-true prompts you’ve seen elsewhere, but it’s also rich with inspired ideas for story-telling and poetry alike. Ideas that the teacher in me could (and did, more than once) easily tilt to lessons, but made the writer in me excited to drop what I was doing and carve out time to create. From challenging the reader to fit random images and phrases into their prose or stanzas – something that reminded me of the surrealists – to daring the prospective writer to go on field trips to find their own prompts, this book is a total hit.
If…
by Sarah Perry
For the younger writers, these watercolors invite the imagination of the writer to wonder and fill in the blanks with their own stories or decorate the space around the page with their own words of poetry. Recommended for this list by multiple Elementary Ed TC’s, this book is as beautiful as it is inspiring.
There’s a lot of books out there for writers. Remember, write often, if not daily, until anything in the world can be your prompt. And if all these suggestions fail and you’re still stumped… there’s always writingprompts.tumblr.com (no really, those are AWESOME)