![](https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/c_fill,f_jpg,g_auto,h_670,q_auto,w_670/60c7c8ce08542f001dab3be3.jpg)
Hometown Feature
Show what your hometown means to you through your camera lens.
Prizes
- First place:
- $5,000
- Second place:
- $2,500
- Third place:
- $1,000
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Jan 07, 2021
Submissions closed
Feb 17, 2021 4:59 AM CUT
Results
Feb 19, 2021
Prizes
- First place:
- $5,000
- Second place:
- $2,500
- Third place:
- $1,000
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Jan 07, 2021
Submissions closed
Feb 17, 2021 4:59 AM CUT
Results
Feb 19, 2021
About this challenge
Home is where the heart is, and for this Challenge, nostalgia runs high. Use your photography skills to capture the things that make your hometown so special to you. You don't have to be a professional photographer –– any original film photos, digital images, phone pictures, polaroids, or videos are encouraged –– to capture the essence of why the place you call home deserves some love.
Your hometown can mean the town where you grew up, but it doesn't have to! Anywhere you've made memories, or come to love, can turn into home. Either way, you know it like the back of your hand, so show us around through the lens of your camera. Enter the Hometown Feature Challenge and capture not just what your hometown looks like, but why it's such a special place. We can't wait to see what home looks like to you.
How to enter
For your story to be eligible, it must include original photography and be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until February 16, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Hometown Feature 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 39 countries will not be eligible to win.
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Challenge resources
Summer Solstice Challenge Winners
‘Safety Net’, by Meredith Harmon, begins in a confiding tone. ‘What town?’ the tale asks. ‘We're an enclave. We're farmers. We till the soil like our forefathers, and our children's children's children will till it, till the end of time.’ There is a folkloric sensibility here, suited to the prompt, but also something contemporary and practical. This winning story of a community trying to protect and preserve itself has echoes of Shirley Jackson’s famous tale ‘The Lottery’, Meredith is a strong Vocal Creator with 225 stories to her name; and this is her second first place win of a challenge; huge congratulations.
By Vocal Curation Team9 days ago in Resources
Let's Talk About AI and Vocal Challenges
We might as well cut to the chase. Yes, we run every challenge entry through our AI detector; if we find an entry has been generated, it’s disqualified. As Justin Maury, Founder/CEO of Vocal has written, we use these detection systems because we know our readers enjoy authentic content; we also ask you to disclose when you’ve posted on the platform using AI assistance. But a different issue comes into play when we’re thinking about Challenges, and we believe it’s an important one.
By Vocal Curation Team11 days ago in Resources
Dialogue Poetry Challenge Winners
Hannah Moore is a first-time grand prize winner with her dialogue poem, On Receipt of Bad News. This was a poem that genuinely engaged both with the exchange of our prompt, but also focussed on the way poetic rhythms of language could support the writer's conceit. It felt very truthful, too, the way one speaker wishes to ignore the news and focus on practicalities; there was a quiet heartbreak, here. Well done.
By Vocal Curation Team15 days ago in Resources