Writers

Parisian diaries. Top Story - October 2026.

Bonjour tout le monde—hello, Vocal fam! I’m writing to you from the French countryside, at a beautiful writers’ residency in the Champagne region. This opportunity first came to me in March 2025. It’s something I’ve been waiting for, fantasizing about, and obsessing over for a long time. Now I’m here.

Passing Storms. Top Story - October 2026.

I haven’t been doing so good recently. Some things happened that specifically touched all my mental health struggles in the worst possible way. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it's been one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had.

In My Mind. Top Story - October 2026.

Maggie: January 2022 Life feels peaceful I think, Covid is mostly a lingering memory that feels oddly dystopian, work is going well I feel like I have found my place and with exciting new opportunities going on maybe I have finally reached "girl boss", I also spent all of lockdown having a health kick and I look fantastic for it! all that's left is to find myself a nice guy to settle down with and I tell my friend this while texting someone I went on a kind of good date. I mean it wasn't the most amazing but he made me laugh and he was cute so he deserves a second shot right? But for today I am sat in the local dive bar my friend has taken ownership of with a cup of coffee ready to start painting. I had been promising for weeks I would come and help and just couldn't find the time, after a week of feeling.. not quite myself I promised my boss I would stay home and rest! I am late to almost everything all the time but this week I had been late to work 3 times and luckily she was concerned and not angry. well staying home lasted all of 3 hours Saturday morning before I was texting Tessa if she wanted help. One thing everyone I know will agree on is that when things are going well for me some bad luck is always waiting round the corner, and just as I was feeling safe the universe came back with a punch. Tessa was talking to her daughter whose only a few years older than me about where to start and I noticed I felt a bit... fuzzy I figured I was just tired until I heard Tessa ask " are you okay Maggie you don't look right?" I waved her off "I'm just feeling a bit tired I'm okay" Tessa: I know my Mags well enough to know she was not okay, before I could do anything she slumps to the side nearly falling off the bar stool and we only just caught her in time. We moved her to the sofa slumped to one side I knew something was wrong but she cant be having a stroke she's only 25, I look to my daughter Dee I can see her panic "if she wasn't so young I'd think she was having stroke" but as I look back her face is drooped and her words and slurred "oh fuck you are having a stroke" Mags looks at me and tells me she's fine she's going to walk home but I'm already dialling 999, "you are anything but find Dee keep her talking!" "what am I supposed to talk about" I cant answer before the operator picks up and after asking for an ambulance immediately and explaining the situation they tell us to do the same "keep her talking".

Honoring Black Inventors everywhere.. Top Story - October 2026.

Honoring Black Inventors I am just as surprised as some readers may be at discovering the myriad of everyday inventions we take for granted, never knowing how they came to be. I am sharing some of these ideas by amazing people we never hear about. Let's begin with some of these smart Black women.

Ashes. Top Story - October 2026.

Whenever I come back here, I want to be sixteen again. Or is it just a natural craving to want to feel those reckless burns beneath the soles of my feet? The desire of wanting to be young again entangled with the wrath of all of my deepest memories. Being in this house, after over a decade, has the acid in my belly turning. The bitter taste of resentment slides up my throat, my mouth filling with saliva, no where to spit except onto the old wooden floor. The last time my insides hit this floor was after a couple shots of Kettle and a joint. He made me smoke that night. He made me do a lot of things I didn’t want to back then. Even after all this time, I still know exactly which steps on his staircase creak, and which ones will get me to the top without his mother ever knowing he was sneaking me into her lovely, quiet, little home.

Have I Forgotten How to Write?. Top Story - October 2026.

Hey, there. It’s been a while. Not just since I’ve been on Vocal, but since I’ve written… anything. Actually, I’m pretty sure this is the longest I’ve gone without writing in my whole life.

Sasha vs. the Beast. Top Story - October 2026.

Have you ever been inside a Dutch house restroom? It can get claustrophobic. The toilet and shower/bath are usually in two separate rooms. So when you do your business, it is in a room where you couldn't stretch your arms out in either direction. It fits exactly the toilet and, if you are lucky, half an A4-sized sink. We are lucky.

(Un)certainty. Top Story - October 2026.

This ominous, silhouetted figure and the high-contrast CRT-TV background are reminiscent of early-internet creepypastas, or the many modern indie-horror games that seek the same aesthetic.

12 Ways Anthony Bourdain Broke Every Rule of Writing

The Parents We Never Got To Choose. Content Warning.

When Music Memory Makes The Point

Le Guin Apprenticeship Journal VIII

FROM PAIN TO POWER. NO FATE UNCHALLENGED.

Eve After the Fall

“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.” Voltaire.

Archaeology