During the pandemic, Susanna Baird occasionally wrote 100-word pieces focused on very short moments of time as a way to shake out her brain before diving into longer work. Her workshop group, The Carrot Cake Writers, created their own hundred-word memoirs, which Susanna slapped up on a basic blog site under the title “Five Minutes” with no plan except to share. Other friends, then friends of friends, then strangers started sending their own micromemoirs (that pandemic was long) and Five Minutes took off.
The Carrots continue to support the site, jumping in when readers bow out last minute, attending and reading at in-person events, and writing more excellent micros. When we publish a piece by one of the Carrots, we slot them in as bonus content; they are not taking a spot from writers who come in through the regular submissions process.
Five Minutes wouldn’t exist without the Carrots. Meet them below!
Jim DeFilippi served in the Air Force during the Vietnam Conflict and then taught public school in northern Vermont for thirty years. His books of biography, history, crime fiction, and humor are available at www.amazon.com/author/jimdefilippi.
Bobbi Lerman is a writer of historical romance, and travel essays, and the founder of Scribbler's Ink, an online community/website offering writing tips, prompts, and workshops. Bobbi not only contributed very early content to Five Minutes, but with E.M. Panos made up our first reading team. Bobbi continues to serve as an in-house reader, and has read her way through every submission every month for years.
Ian Owens lives in Essex, Massachusetts, where he employs himself in high tech, acts in community theater, bicycles, and writes mostly about Vikings. His first book, a hybrid historical fiction/memoir called "Riding the Big One," can be found at ianowens.com.
Bios pending for Beth Anne Cooke-Cornell, Betsy Ellor, Jill Pabich, E.M. Panos, and E.F. Sweetman.