Write one piece about two incidents from your life that occurred in the same place. The two incidents should not be directly related, but they should have a thematic link. For example, you might write about an argument you had with your father in the kitchen of the house where you grew up, then contrast it with another scene in the kitchen, where your father taught you how to re-grout tile, tying the two together through a theme of teaching. Or you might write about the joy you felt way too many free eating samples at Costco, and then describe going back to Costco and witnessing a couple having a loud argument in the cat food aisle, uniting the anecdotes through the theme of public embarrassment. The objective of this exercise is to find unexpected connections in the events in your life, major or minor.

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Details on EVENT’s 2016 annual Non-Fiction Contest.