CONTESTS (guidelines below)
1. Into the Wild
2. Inheritance
3. Then I Remembered Where I Had Seen That Face Before
4. A Watery World
5. Glitz
6. Lie to Me
7. Songs, Sounds, and Voices 8. Sting
9. Broken 1
0. Five-Minute Noir
11. Loss
12. Music Box
13. Fraught Firsts
14. Friends and Friendship
15. Out of Range
16. Unusual Vacations
17. The Ordinary That Wasn’t
18. Exceed Expectations
19. Hope
20. Ripe
21. Care
22. Intersections
23. Praise Rain
24. The Joy in the Unseen
25. Wish
26. A Time You Had to Act like Someone You’re Not
Any time between May 6 and May 31, submit to any or all of the contests/themes above. All pieces must be 100 words, must focus on a very short period of time (think five minutes), and must be centered on real events you experienced.
Winners will be announced in July and will receive $5 USD (paid via Venmo, PayPal, or Wise) and a big WOOHOO! Anyone who enters all 26 contests will be recognized as well.
Our regular Five Minutes’ guidelines apply to the contests, except: • You may enter the contests even if you have a piece forthcoming with Five Minutes; • High school writers may enter the contests.
Our regular submissions portal will be closed in May and reopen June 1.
FAQ:
Added as we get them.
• Can I enter one piece in two contests? Nope.
• If my piece doesn’t win, can I submit it when regular submissions re-open? Yes! As is always the case with regular submissions, you may only submit one piece at a time. We will spread contest-generated submissions over a few months so the June judges aren’t overwhelmed.
• How many pieces can I submit, and when? You may submit to each of the contests once. You do not have to submit to all contests. You may submit to any contest/theme at any time between May 6 and May 31. (For example, you can submit to 5 contests on May 17 and 7 more on May 23. Whatever works!)
• What’s up with the five minutes? The events you describe do not have to span exactly five minutes, but there should be a short period of time where something happens that anchors the piece. Some pieces are very tightly focused on brief stretches (such as the recent piece “My Daughter”), and others span long periods of time but contain clear moments of shifting (for example, the recent piece “Drought.”) We strongly suggest reading several pieces to get a sense of how writers successfully address the “five minutes” challenge.