25 questions for unanswerable times
We have always turned to questions. In times of uncertainty or speechlessness, joy and rest. Questions are where and how we begin: by asking, inviting, and listening to what they have to teach us.
As writers and artists, we are lifelong students of story, and as editors, curators, and facilitators, we are practitioners of questions. Over the past 10 years, we’ve created space for collective questioning. We wrote about our call formation process for Proximate Press, which is a participatory framework that guides ten people through a two-month process. The end result: a three-paragraph prompt for each issue of our literary magazine. In the 17 calls for submissions we’ve curated, we asked over 150 questions, and in turn, we published 300+ writers and artists, whose work responded to those questions (or asked new ones in return)..
Questions are also at the foreground of our digital residency program, Narrative Shifts: our first session is called “Centering Questions,” and it teaches residents about our signature workshop model, The Mini Manifesto, which centers the writer—and two very specific questions—as a way to discuss, wield, and dissect our relationships to the heart, spine, and architecture of our individual and collective work. The art and craft of questions is in everything we do.
We endeavor to ask questions that are both timely and timeless as a way of finding our words, our work, and our voice. Below is a round-up of 25 questions from our past 17 calls for submissions that we feel speak to the shared moments we find ourselves in. Whether you are a writer or reader, deep thinker or feeler, we hope they’ll give your mind a soft place to land. Consider them prompts for critical thought or even questions to help spark more words and considerations as we navigate these tumultuous times.
- How do we do things not in spite of but alongside — in relation to — everything that is happening around us?
- How do we determine what is worth giving our attention to; how will this shape our future?
- What are we as humans surrounded by — do we choose to surround ourselves with — and how do we situate ourselves within language? What power does this positioning bestow?
- What truths have you unearthed beneath the falsitudes, and how is what is real related to what’s possible?
- What are the institutions — family, religion, education, and beyond — that dictate your understanding of the world, and where do you locate the sting of disillusionment?
- As writers and artists, our medium is quite literally the message, so how can we hone a deeper awareness of what that very language has worked to conceal?
- How can we construct a society that implores us to take care of one another above all else?
- When we scrape away the excess of our personal and professional relationships, our roles and our obligations, what is at the core of who we are and what we value?
- How we can make room for a wider form of story?
- How do we encourage critical thought around stories that may have once seemed heroic, but are actually harmful?
- How can we learn from moments of failing so that our anger, grief, and shame can propel us toward conversations and healing?
- What does forgiveness look like from where you hurt?
- What role do apologies have in our individual and collective endeavors toward progress, toward both being and doing better?
- How has our inaction caused hurt?
- What do we value and how do we place value in this country and within each other?
- Is there such a thing as a compromise that is fair to all?
- Is there a power that is ever responsible?
- How do we tackle conflicts of belief, and make the best use of them as a tool for understanding?
- Why do we reject bodies in danger?
- Who can we trust to tell us when, where, and how we are safe?
- What is the role of art, and the responsibility of storytelling?
- Can we utilize technology to examine the truth, expose falsehoods, and hold power accountable?
- Why belong? What is worth belonging to?
- What have you recorded during this time, and what are you trying to forget?
- What do the questions you ask yourself, in turn, demand of those around you?
