Coming of Age

This is the final Challenge in our month of nonfiction Challenges, most of which have revolved around a theme we hold very close to our hearts: You!

For this Challenge, we want you to think about some of the greatest protagonists in literature, and then put yourself in that seat. Become the first-person narrator, like Ponyboy Curtis, Jane Eyre, or Holden Caulfield, and tell us about the time or event in your life that would be the crux of your story so far. What was your life like before this event, and what was it like afterwards? Was it a near-death experience? A broken heart? Of course it might not be something bad or traumatizing—whatever it was that changed everything for you, we want to hear that story. There are no specific requirements, other than we want it to be a page-turner... well, whatever the Vocal equivalent of turning pages is, we want it to be that.

This is your moment. Tell us your coming-of-age story.

For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until September 28, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Coming of Age Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.