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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 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

Oct 22
Oct 22 Down the Drain

Kerby Kunstler Caudill

I went to the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the hot water.

Oct 20
Oct 20 Transparencies

Miles Hilton

“I need to get out of the fucking city,” I complain, and ten minutes later you’ve booked a campsite.

Oct 19
Oct 19 Rookie Mistakes

K Roberts

The setting: A neighborhood softball game.

Oct 17
Oct 17 Unownable Gifts

Annika Speer

“Watch those lights off the coast,” my mom instructs.

Oct 15
Oct 15 This Time

Tim Fox

We hear a thump in her bedroom. We’ve been here before.

Oct 13
Oct 13 At the Bus Stop

Elena de la Garza

My neighbor tells me about the fitness app that’s helped her lose nine pounds and her real estate showings . . .

Oct 12
Oct 12 Going Steady

Héctor Hernández

I was crazy about Vicky, but at 13, I’d never asked a girl to go steady.

Oct 9
Oct 9 Luminescence

Elliott Fielding

Green-fringed red curtains hang motionless in the sky and reflect in the lake, framed by purple and stars.

Oct 8
Oct 8 Post-Beighton

M.G. Shirk

Two decades of agony for a single piece of printer paper, annotated and signed, ceremoniously declaring the basic facts of my body.

Oct 6
Oct 6 Riding

Swetha Amit

The hill on Alpine Road looked steeper than I remembered.

Oct 5
Oct 5 HR Manager

Tatiana Samokhina

“We spoke to the alleged perpetrator,” she says.

Oct 2
Oct 2 That Fall

Kyra Anderson

It’s November. Blue sky. Or not. I don’t know.

Sep 30
Sep 30 Doomsday Rice

Andrea Salvador

The world is not fully on fire yet, so I am crying instead of sobbing over machine-dried, vacuum-sealed seeds of Philippine rice resting in Norway's Global Seed Vault.

Sep 29
Sep 29 Pennies

Heidi Wehmer

“He’ll be here any minute. Give him five.”

Sep 28
Sep 28 Crows

Kirby Olson

In suburban Seattle, I watched a one-eyed cat endure the injustice of crows.

Sep 25
Sep 25 The Art Sub

Tom Newcomer

Students toss clay scraps into a fifty-five-gallon garbage drum filled with slurry water.

Sep 24
Sep 24 B-Roll

Stefanie Fair-King

I watched the man prop up his phone and press record.

Sep 22
Sep 22 It Began With G

Donna Williams

Grace is unmerited favor extended to those who do not deserve it.

Sep 18
Sep 18 No Baby Brother

Shana Naugle

“Ow!” I grabbed my cramping belly and slid to the kitchen floor.

Sep 17
Sep 17 Chicken Run

Jim Parisi

A miasma of Axe body spray and teen condescension fills the space between us.

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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. 
Click through to our monthly newsletter (5minutes100words) and/or our weekly digest (fiveminutesweeklydigest), both on Substack.

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