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

My Champion

“I sold another book.” Mom had persuaded another person to buy my novel. She was my champion. But her voice was getting weaker. When doctors said there was nothing more they could do, I moved back home. As the cancer metastasized, she wasn’t very lucid, but one day pointed at her bookshelf. “I left you something.” Earlier she’d had me tuck a few dollars next to her copy of my book. “Next to The Talking Drum?” I asked. She put on a big smile, “Yes! The Talking Drum!” That moment is one of my greatest treasures. Mom died days later.

Lisa Braxton is the author of The Talking Drum, winner of a 2021 Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal in urban fiction. Find Lisa at lisabraxton.com, on Twitter @LisaReidbraxton, and on Instagram @lisabraxton6186.

Blue No Red

Frog Pond