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Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here. 

Five Minutes One hundred words

Sep 9
Sep 9 McNugget Family

Sienna Lew

Six flimsy boxes, ten McNuggets each, and hot fries?

Sep 8
Sep 8 Lunch Money

Maggie Juliano

In the vending machine’s glare, I weighed my options.

Sep 5
Sep 5 Time to Rethink

David Ledrick

I watched holes bloom on the target, nowhere near where I aimed.

Sep 4
Sep 4 The Double

Yelena Furman

This time, someone emails to subpoena records of my supposed coworker.

Sep 3
Sep 3 Afternoon Sun

Debdutta Pal

The phone rings once before her slender fingers cradle the receiver.

Sep 2
Sep 2 Guppies

Kathy Lynn Carroll

“It’s time.” I know exactly what Dad means and jump up, abandoning my dolls.

Aug 29
Aug 29 Big Break

Brian Cox

I am nineteen and newly arrived in Manhattan to become a writer.

Aug 28
Aug 28 Nursing Home

Dawn Skorczewski

My mother’s eyes open as I enter the room with Dunkin’ coffee, a blueberry cake donut, and two daisies.

Aug 26
Aug 26 Rain

Asmi Mahajan

At the theme park, the skies broke open.

Aug 25
Aug 25 Peels & Peals

Maria Ordovas-Montanes

The therapist holds back tears as I describe the summer my anorexia started.

Aug 24
Aug 24 It Wasn't Me

John Holmes

I arrive at the café’s toilet door exactly at the same moment as the lady who had smiled at me earlier.

Aug 23
Aug 23 Icebreaker

Betsy Ellor

Ignoring shouts, I scroll his profile for conversation starters.

Aug 21
Aug 21 Sweet Dreams

Carly Anderson

We’re free, free, free, with overgrown feathered bangs, hand-me-down tees on matchstick frames, sucking down raspberry Slurpees on steaming sidewalks . . .

Aug 19
Aug 19 baby daddy 2.0

Billie Oh

what i actually am is foster-turned-adoptive parent.

Aug 18
Aug 18 Growing Babies

Louise Kaestner

The babies sit aligned in rows.

Aug 15
Aug 15 Day 1 of 20,657

Steve Gerson

Saturday, September 7, 1968, 8:55, five minutes to my blind date.

Aug 14
Aug 14 Sweet Cream

Sarah Kilch Gaffney

When my first husband was bed-bound and nearing his last days, I made him a sweetened buttermilk cream dessert.

Aug 12
Aug 12 Torn Apart

Vani Aadhya

We sat on the balcony, my parents and I.

Aug 11
Aug 11 Baby Cucumber

Kim Palimsano

We had all become such fast friends.

Aug 8
Aug 8 Thieves

James W. Miller

She can't find the credit cards she hid in our house from would-be thieves when we went away.

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Five Minutes features micro-memoirs, hundred-word pieces about five minutes in a life.
We’d love to read your five. Submit here. 
To receive our monthly newsletter, Five Minutes More, head to Substack!
To receive our weekly digest, containing the week’s stories, email susanna@fiveminutelit.com with the subject line: Digest.

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