True Crime

In the last few years, true crime has grown from a niche genre into a pop culture phenomenon. Thanks to streaming and podcasts both notorious and newly-discovered true crime stories have been binged and dissected all over the internet. If you’re one of those people who spend hours in a rabbit hole of conflicting theories about gruesome murders, this week’s challenge will give you goosebumps…in a good way!

For the True Crime Challenge, we give you permission to put that research to good use. Pick the case you find the most fascinating and tell us everything. Channel your inner Lois Lane and give us the scoop: where and when did it happen? Why did it happen? And most importantly, who did it? Retell the details from the Ted Bundy manhunt or attempt to solve a famous cold case like the Biggie and Tupac murders. We want to hear it all! We only ask you to keep our Community Guidelines in mind and refrain from using excessively violent descriptions or gory images. 🕵️

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 June 15, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The True Crime 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.