Reading · Tania’s Highly Irregular Newsletter & Unbox Your Words

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Hello, all!

I’m taking a Substack break in August (paid subscribers, I will freeze your payments) so I thought I’d take this chance to do another round-up of all the 21 Unbox Your Words posts I’ve created so far - since they might be seen as a kind of writing course of sorts, one that you can do in any order according to what you might fancy and what might be useful - and fun - for you!

So, I’ve offered you several “writing provocations”, from moving the bed (which includes a Word Cricket video) to watching TV like an alien, “writing something “bad” and writing like someone else. Then we have themed writing prompts and exercises, from magical realism, playing with time (1) and playing with time (2) to getting playful with voice and point of view, to inventing your own punctuation, taking inspiration from ‘real’ people , the idea of newness, and excavating your own work.

We’ve explored the beauty of the unsaid, taken a look at beginnings, and I’ve invited you to write joy, give a little praise, and celebrate aunts, celebrate the night and be inspired by weird vintage advertisements. You might also like to take a look at the post on unboxing, writing rituals and boxes and think about setting up your own rituals. If you want to try your hand at what I call “hybrid writing”, there’s the Unbox 5-Day Hybrid Writing Challenge: Intro and Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four and Day Five! And finally, there’s a video of me inviting you to play Word Cricket, and the recording of the very first 1-Hour Writing Muscle Workout.

And remember, if you’re not yet a full subscriber and you’d like to unlock all these posts as well as this one but £3.50 per month would be a struggle, you can upgrade your subscription for free by clicking this link: https://taniahershman.substack.com/freesub. Please do!

So, on to our July writing prompt/exercise, which is inspired by something I offered to the participants in my very first Unbox Your Words writing course…

We talked about the concept of collage, something I’m very into, when you bring two or more things together that seem very different and see what happens! I’ve done this with words, and I decided that we’d get away from words for a while, so I brought them some images by artist Nicole McLaughlin, “an upcycling designer known for transforming everyday objects into wearable pieces.”

Here are some of the images of her work, scroll down for my writing exercise invitation:

I found out about Nicole’s work from an instagram post by The Weird Show, here’s their description of what she does:

“Every object is one decision away from meaning something completely different. That decision is context....The material already existed. The only thing missing was a different question about what it could be. Collagists do this with images: take a photograph out of its original context, place it somewhere new, and it means something it never meant before. McLaughlin does the same thing with objects. The logic is identical — appropriation, recontextualization, new meaning — just three-dimensional and wearable.”

Writing Exercise

This month I have two options for you - feel free to try both!

I invite you take inspiration from one or more of the images above in any way you like as prompts for a new piece of writing
I invite you to do as the Weird Show says above and take something out of context, place it somewhere new and see what happens. You might take an existing piece of writing of yours and place it next to something else - another piece of writing, an image - and see what is sparked by that collage. Or you might find another way to respond to this invitation - anything goes!

Enjoy! Let me know in the comments how you get on!

Tania x

I’m taking a break from teaching in August, but I have a number of recordings of past Zoom workshops you can watch and write along to if you want a little chivvying!

‘When Physics Meets Fairy Tales’

‘Fairy Tale and Crime Mashup’

Unwritten Women – Filling History’s Gaps’

Writing Muscle Workout 6 (April 2026)

Writing Muscle Workout 5 (Feb 2026)

Writing Muscle Workout 4 (Nov 2025)

‘Permission’ Workshop (Jan 2026)

All you need to do is slip whatever feels right to you in my Tip Jar below and email me at taniah@gmail.com to let me know which one or more of them you'd like the links to, and you can watch and write along at your leisure!

If you like what I’m up to here and want to show your appreciation, there are all sorts of ways to do that, such as “liking” this post and leaving a comment. If you’d like to slip something into my Tip Jar, click the button below. Thank you!

Tip Jar

If you’d like more writing provocations/prompts/exercises and pieces to read, here are the links to all the previous Unbox posts - this isn’t a writing course, you don’t have to do/read them in any order, they’re there for you when you need them! Here are the links:

Unbox 1a - writing provocation

Unbox 1b - something to read

Unbox 2a - magical realism

Unbox 2b - unboxing, writing rituals and boxes

Unbox 3a - watching TV like an alien

Unbox 3b - something to read

Unbox 4a - what time is it?

Unbox 4b - something to read

Unbox 5a - write something “bad”

Unbox 5b - something to read

Unbox 5-Day Hybrid Writing Challenge: Intro and Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four and Day Five

Unbox 6a - giving a little praise