Writing Prompt: WELCOME

Visual inspiration + mental exercise to start your writing week

Photograph by Aimee Liu

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Metaphortography Prompts are free visual and verbal writing prompts for inspiration and reflection. This is the Monday section of Aimee Liu’s MFA Lore. Our Wednesday section is Writer In The World, a curated collection of essays on the writing life by acclaimed MFA faculty and alumni. Writers in Conversation and other MFA Core essays on the craft and business of creative writing will drop each Saturday. Receive some or all of these newsletters by subscribing now:

Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone,

If only Rev. King’s Dream had indeed come true.

Oh, so welcome it would be to feel wholly welcome in this world right now.

My husband and I are expecting our first two grandbabies in the next few weeks, and these new humans will undeniably be bathed in welcome. We’re lucky also to have good neighbors who welcome us any time we reach out, whether in fellowship or need. And I’m so grateful to have friends and family and subscribers — like you! — who welcome my thoughts and correspondence, making me feel welcome not just in the circles that constitute my social life but also in the more existential depths of life in general. I feel secure, connected, reassured, and hopeful because of all this tender welcome.

And yet, and yet, a peek over the metaphoric garden wall brings me face to face with the opposite of welcome: ugly rhetoric, stares, and sneers filled with suspicion, hatred, rejection, resentment. Because I’m a woman who demands self-determination and freedom of choice. Because I’m educated in the power of critical thinking. Because I have an Asian name and a face that’s not automatically or entirely identifiable as White. Because I’m a proud liberal Democrat who believes in free and fair elections and equal justice for all. Because I’m a writer who defends freedom of the press and absolutely abhors the banning of books. Because I think, therefore I’m unwelcome in a great many communities throughout this once great nation. And that’s not a metaphoric truth. It’s reality.

Welcome is so much more than a feeling. It’s a necessity for survival. A place of solace. A form of connection. A source of strength and hope. But when it’s lost or vandalized or warped into an excuse for exclusion, it can also become a source of injury, or worse.

How often have the words, “You’re not welcome here,” foreshadowed murder? Members of lynch mobs welcome hate and violence with the same excited glee that bonds them together against the unwelcome other. To summon another metaphor, welcome can be a double-edged sword.

And that’s precisely what makes it an excellent prompt. It’s not always what it seems. Even the physical shape of the word contains sharp points as well as rounded edges.

Welcome: Middle English, alteration of wilcume, from Old English, from wilcuma desirable guest (akin to Old High German willicomo desirable guest); akin to Old English willa, will desire, cuman to come

Verb:

1: to greet hospitably and with courtesy or cordiality

2: to accept with pleasure the occurrence or presence of

Adjective:

1: received gladly into one’s presence or companionship

2: giving pleasure : received with gladness or delight especially in response to a need

3: willingly permitted or admitted

4—used in the phrase “you’re welcome” as a reply to an expression of thanks

Noun:

1: a greeting or reception usually upon arrival

2: the state of being welcome

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Here is your writing prompt:

As you contemplate the image above, write about something or someone who made you feel welcome— or unwelcome. Try to answer the following questions:

• How would you describe the person, place, or event that made you feel welcome or unwelcome?

• What is your strongest, most vivid memory of an incident that aroused this feeling?

• What exactly prompted the feeling? Words? An expression? A gesture? More overt actions?

• What was the context; what was happening around you when you experienced this feeling?

• What physical sensations or observations do you recall?

• What did you do or think in response?

• How did you interpret what was happening at the time?

• How did this feeling of welcome or unwelcome affect your sense of self, both in the moment and looking back?

• How has this memory affected your sense of right and wrong, the way you treat and respond to others?

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Loreates’ Corner

I’m delighted to introduce you to a few of the wonderful stacks by writers in our community. Please read, subscribe, and share! And if you’re an MFA Lore subscriber with a great writing stack that I haven’t mentioned, please drop the link in a comment, so I can add you to our Corner.

Yvonne Liu writes Yvonne Liu :

Mona Gable writes Travels with Mona Gable

Kate Temple-West writes Wild Crossroads

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