1000 Words of Summer 2026 - Day 2

A letter from Lily King.

If you are just joining us, there is an FAQ.

Also this two-week event is a fundraiser for a number of charitable organizations including sponsoring a Scholastic Book Fair for a New Orleans school. Subscribe, venmo or read more about it here.

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Hi friends.

Today you will write 1000 words. Because you believe in the power of literature, art, and culture, and you want to be an active participant in all of it. You want to contribute to it, engage with it, be a part of building the conversation. (Maybe it even drives you a little crazy to be left out of it?) But no one is going to hear what you have to say if you don't get to work. Connect yourself now, today, to the conversation going on in the world. With your 1000 words.

Welcome to day 2 of 1000 Words of Summer. I hope you’ve all been having fun and feeling inspired. Your convivial spirit in the slack has been noted and appreciated. Today the first of our contributing writers shows up to add to all the beautiful supportive noise of this project.

We start off this year with a bang: the one and only Lily King. Her New York Times bestselling, much beloved novels include the Kirkus award-winning Euphoria, my personal favorite Writers & Lovers, and, most recently, Heart the Lover. She has also published a story collection, Five Tuesdays in Winter, which was a finalist for The Story Prize. Her work has been published in twenty-eight languages. She lives in Maine, where her local bookstores are Print & Longfellow Books.

I met Lily last year at a reading she did with Judy Blume. She immediately said yes when I asked her to contribute to this project. Her novels are, for me, the kind of books that fix me when I’m in a reading rut. Everything she writes is so seamless, elegant, and heartfelt. Graceful. But books that seem effortless require a master level of skill to create. And to be able to write those deep emotional truths one needs a hard-won wisdom. I am thrilled Lily joined us this year.

Each 1000 Words contributing writer gets to choose one charity to receive $1000. Lily asked that her donation go to Project Relief.

And here is Lily giving us one simple and beautiful writing prompt for the day: