
Inside Jokes
Share a funny, true story about you and one of your childhood friends.
Prizes
- First Place:
- $1,000
- Second Place:
- $500
- Third Place:
- $250
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Sep 15, 2021
Submissions closed
Sep 22, 2021 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Sep 28, 2021
Prizes
- First Place:
- $1,000
- Second Place:
- $500
- Third Place:
- $250
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Sep 15, 2021
Submissions closed
Sep 22, 2021 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Sep 28, 2021
About this challenge
We’re taking a little break from fiction challenges for a few weeks (but don’t worry, fiction will return soon enough…). In the meantime, we want to continue the theme of: You!
So far, you've told us what you do and why it matters for the A Day in the Life Challenge. You've told us what "home" means to you in the Homecoming Challenge. Now, we have a new Challenge, and we're calling it the Inside Jokes Challenge.
For this Challenge, we want you to tell us a funny, TRUE story involving one or more of your childhood friends. We all have shenanigans from our past that make for excellent storytelling—share one of those memories with us. Late nights, street fights, crazy heights, stage frights—anything and everything is fair game as long as the story includes you and a friend (imaginary friends count too). Tell us a story; we can't wait to learn some more about you. :)
How to enter
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 21, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Inside Jokes 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.
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Challenge resources
You Are Here Challenge Winners
For You Are Here , we asked writers to put readers somewhere they weren't supposed to be. What really stood out in the stories that placed was how often that line wasn't so clear. Sometimes you knew you were pushing your luck, sometimes you had every right to be there, and sometimes you didn't get much of a choice. Writing in second person made those situations feel a lot harder to watch from the sidelines.
By Vocal Curation Team5 days ago in Resources
Negative Space Challenge Winners
For Negative Space , we asked writers to explore how much can be said through what's left out. Our favorite entries found clever ways to make those silences, gaps, and unanswered questions feel just as important as the words themselves.
By Vocal Curation Team13 days ago in Resources
Out of Season Challenge Winners
We’re trying something new with our challenge awards structure. Starting with Out of Season , each challenge will recognize one grand prize , four winners , and ten honorable mentions . That’s 15 stories to celebrate, with a little extra love for the top pick. For this challenge, the strongest stories made the timing matter. Something showing up early or returning when it shouldn’t changed what people did, what they assumed, or how they saw each other. There was humor in trying to carry on as usual, and sadness in realizing why the usual schedule no longer worked. Sometimes the wrong time of year turned out to be just when someone needed it.
By Vocal Curation Team19 days ago in Resources



