IVES, Lucy; MAUSS, Nick
three six five: prompts, acts, divinations(an inexhaustible compendium for writing)

There are 365 exercises for writing in this book, but it is not simply a book of writing exercises.

three six five is a “how-to” book of questions—not answers. It is an ars poetica of expanding possibility, a tarot deck of acts instead of images, a book of bending hours, a diary of contemplation and imagination, an antidote to consumption in the shape of care and attention.

These prompts, acts, and divinations—in alchemical combinations with new drawings by Nick Mauss—invite both aspiring and experienced writers to learn and unlearn, to mine memory and forgetting, to enter impossible spaces and create new ways of telling time, to inhabit multiple, other, and conflicting perspectives, to discover the elasticity of language and its constraints, to write by drawing, walking, listening, and even by being distracted.

While this is an inexhaustible compendium for writing, it is also an enduring reservoir for those who have no desire to be(come) a writer. Many exercises take the form of play, encourage collaboration with friends, strangers, and non-human beings, and operate off the page, often in the world, in the spirit of discovery rather than result. All intend to nurture and cultivate possibility.

Tracing the lineage of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit and Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, novelist, poet, and critic Lucy Ives offers encouragement, candor, and a deep appreciation for the vagaries, wonders, and challenges of a writing life.

[publishers’ note]

Published by Siglio, 2026
Manuals / Literature / Poetry