Hi, Fivers:
We’ve added Bluesky to our social media channels.
We have reading slots open come February and beyond! If you’re already signed up for later in 2025, you’re welcome to hop in early. If you’re not signed up, email susanna@fiveminutelit.com to join us.
Keep writing! Keep submitting!
Susanna and the Team at Five Minutes
Goodbye November
Thank you again to our November readers Susan Condon, Sarah Frederick, Lina Lau, M.R. Mandell, Alex Rost, Yashaswini Sharma, Shoshauna Shy, Claire Stegman, and John Yohe! They read and scored 55 pieces this month! (Our editorial staff is almost done with October processing, and our contest team is wrapping up their scoring.)
Hello December
Julia Clebsch (“Stolen”, “Touching Her”) writes memoirs based on place, family, and nature, with work found in Legacy, Five Minutes, Lesbian Nation. She’s been a WOW Women on Writing non-fiction finalist twice. She has read for Five Minutes (2023) and Micro Marvels (2024) at the Salem Literary Festival. Instagram: @clebsch. Facebook: facebook.com/jclebsch1
Molly Freedenberg (“Unmasked”) (she/her) is a disabled writer living in Southern California. She has a writing degree from Reed College, and has published essays and creative non-fiction in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including Bust and Five Minutes. She is currently working on a memoir, as well as the newsletter “Well, Actually”: mollyfree.substack.com
Baylee Less-Eiseman (“The Fridge”) is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Memphis and is a reader for the literary journal, The Pinch. She is working on her first novel and has been published or has work forthcoming in Five Minutes, JAKE, and LEON Literary Review.
Amanda Le Rougetel (“Baby Overboard”, “Dyke Reflecting”), a writer and community educator, blogs at fiveyearsawriter.blogspot.com and teaches through writingastool.ca. Her usual genre is short-form CNF, but she is working on a longer piece about her mother dying—a good challenge both emotionally and craft-wise. Find her published work through Chill Subs.
Samantha Rice (“Fish Beats Rock”) taught college mathematics for fourteen years before shifting to writing fiction about complicated family relationships. She completed her first novel this year–twenty-five years in the making. She resides in Connecticut with her son, also a writer.
Ana C. H. Silva’s (“Pão Doce” forthcoming) poems have appeared in various literary magazines. She creates community-based poetry installations and writes poetry and art reviews. Her poetry chapbooks are One Cupped Hand Above the Other, with Dancing Girl Press, and While Mercury Fish, with Finishing Line Press.
Claire Stegman is a trans-woman in high school. She started reading when she was young and realized she enjoyed being able to think about the deeper meaning behind words. She enjoys a lot of nature and especially birds. She likes being able to help people and learning new things with them. Claire is our November/December editorial intern.
As always, Founding Reader Bobbi Lerman, Managing Editor Maria S. Picone, and Editor Susanna Baird are reading.
High Fives
Congratulations …
— to Linda Kohler for publishing “Cathedrals” with The Marrow
— to Casey Mulligan Walsh for publishing “Help Wanted: Pre-Emptive Griever” with Hippocampus Magazine
— to Damhuri Muhammad for publishing “Dialogue between the Indonesian and Chilean Poetic Traditions” with Suspect
— to Beth Kanter for publishing “Ode to the Patriarchy” with Tangled Locks Journal
— to Mark Hendrickson for publishing “The Beginning / The End” with Swing
—to Nina Miller for publishing “Lost Citizens of the Fringe” with Sci-Fi Shorts
—to Jennifer Mills Kerr for publishing “Recovery: A Prose Poem Series” in The Mackinaw
—to Nancy Huggett for publishing “How to Love a Monster” in The Ex-Puritan
Head to our Contributor Updates page to share your good news. If we missed shouting out a piece of your good news, please remind us.
Opportunities
Editorial Intern: Know a high school or college student who loves to write and read? We’d love to have them join our reading team for a month. Email susanna@fiveminutelit.com.
Are you running a contest, reading for another journal, offering a class? Let our newsletter readers know here. Email susanna@fiveminutelit.com with the subject line “Opportunities.”
Submissions Spotlight: Tangled Locks Journal
Tangled Locks Journal publishlishes “stories, poems, and essays with a strong female point of view.” Reviewed by volunteer readers, Tangled Locks Journal looks for complex stories in order to promote writers' voices. Submissions are always open. To submit click here.
Have a journal you think our Newsletter Editor Kate should highlight? Email susanna@fiveminutelit.com, subject line “Submissions Spotlight Idea.” Must publish nonfiction.
Prompts
Inspired by our November pieces.
somersault • twin • New Year’s • truck • carry them all • smooth like velvet • wheelchair • dough • cruise ship • axis • familiar face • dock • flit • bulge • drone • cousins • gust
Lines & Links
Every first line from November:
Pim suddenly elbow-strikes my jaw and somersaults to say, “Hope you like soup, motherfucker . . . ” — “Covenant” by Sarp Sozdinler
My twin grandsons were tired and hungry, and the trip from their preschool to my place was fraught with arguments, crying, and punching. — “Special Hunger” by Kathleen Joy Anderson
New Year’s Eve night, 1979. — “Finding Joy” by Alaknanda Sengupta
The truck stops. — “The Throne” by Nilsa Mariano
Tears partway up the mountain because she’s collected too many rocks and we tell her she can’t carry them all to the top. — “Cambrian Girl” by Linda Kohler
The grassy knoll was smooth like velvet. — “Fresh Smiles” by Theodore Wallbanger
I was on my knees in the wheelchair, facing the hospital security guard. — “5:25 A.M.” by M.E. Line
I rolled out the dough, transmuting kneaded ball into disc. — “Fresh Pasta?” by Kate Pyontek
My mother collapsed on a cruise ship and was airlifted to California. — “I’m Here” by Lesléa Newman
If the world slipped off its axis and unravelled into oblivion, this is the moment that would play on the screen of my mind. — “Set the Scene” by Yashaswini Sharma
Here comes another familiar face. — “Minivan” by Abdulrahim Jamil
Summer afternoon on the dock at the lake. — “My Rhyme Crime” by Lynn Kozlowski
My four-year-old daughter flits around the bedroom, darting, and I’m panicked she will collide with a sharp corner. — “Recharged” by Lina Lau
The principal’s eyes bulged behind square glasses. — “73 Cents” by Kimberley Lovato
Bzzz—the sound of the drone flies over the Beirut skies. — “Sonic Boom” by Christine Khuri
Two of my cousins are profusely talking about their holiday to Japan. — “Polarities” by Swati Moheet Agrawal
A gust of frigid wind startles me as the scraggly-bearded stranger opens the passenger door and demands we drive him home. — “Winter Wanderer” by Laura Schep
Subscribe
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