Dream Date

Planning the perfect date night can be challenging! Between dating apps and lockdown, our options are pretty limited—so you'll have to use your imagination. For this Challenge, we'd like you to create a fiction story about a first date. Whether it involves a romantic candlelit dinner, a stage five clinger who won’t stop calling, or a mysterious blind date planned by your friends, the details are entirely up to you—the only requirement is that at some point in your first date narrative you mention a glass of Merlot. Luckily for you, we've partnered with Bright Cellars for this Challenge so you can browse their incredible wine selection for some inspiration, find the Merlot that really fits your taste, and get started!

If you'd like to treat yourself to some personalized wine, use this link for 50% off of your first 6-bottle box of Bright Cellars!🍷

Judges

Miranda York, founder of At the Table, a creative platform focused on British food culture, and author of The Food Almanac.

Alison Wintheiser, from the Bright Cellars team.

For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 2,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until April 20, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Dream Date 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.