Small Kindness

The Prompt

In honor of R U OK Day on September 12th, we’re inviting you to participate in a special writing challenge to raise mental health awareness. R U OK Day in Australia encourages checking in on friends, family, and colleagues to promote mental health awareness through meaningful conversations.

Imagine your day through someone else's eyes—perhaps a stranger you helped, a co-worker you supported, or someone you held the door open for. You can tell the story from the point of view of the person on the receiving end of the small gesture, or a bystander witnessing the interaction. Whichever perspective you chose, your small kindness can make a huge difference in someone's life.

In order for your submission to qualify, it must be:

• Between 600-1,500 words. This restriction is limited to the body of text. It does not include the title or subtitle.
• Submitted to the Psyche community. Choosing a community is a final step in the submission process. Entries submitted to a different community will not be eligible for placement.

The Prizes

• Grand Prize: $500
• Second Place: $200
• 10 Runners-Up: $20

Special shout-out to Natasja Rose for inspiring this challenge idea in Share Your Ideas to Shape the Future of Vocal Challenges. As Natasja says, "The point is to acknowledge the small acts of kindness we do every day, and that when our brain is our own worst enemy, our hearts can be our greatest ally."

For your piece to be eligible, it should follow the rules above and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until 11:59 PM ET on September 12, 2024 will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Small Kindness 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 runners-up 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.

Any content that is determined to be generated by artificial intelligence will be disqualified and will not be eligible to place in any challenge. Read more on our stance here.