Welcome!

Greetings and Salutations! 👋🏻

I'm delighted you're here. Vocal is my place to write, and this Welcome article is geared to help you navigate my ever-expanding catalogue.

Everything I write has a kernel of truth and a vestige of varnish.

If you're into a particular Category (horror, fiction, poetry, etc.), Vocal's filters are there to help you sort through my online content. >>>Find filters on my page just below my three pinned stories, just above the pictures that point you to the remainder of my catalogue.

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*** My Vocal Challenge Placements ***

Vocal regularly sponsors Challenges for prize money and bragging rights. To date, I'm proud to have had two pieces selected by Vocal's curators. Here are my Runners-Up:

1. Mother Mine 🏅 for Vocal's Love Unravelled Challenge, and
2. Penny Candy 🏅 for Vocal's Snacktime Sonata Challenge.

[My non-placing entries are catalogued below, just after Top Stories.]

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*** Top Stories ***

It's an honor any time Vocal curators select a writer's story to grace the front page. My Top Stories include:

1. Backyard Skulls 🥳 Horror story ☠️ -- Not written for any Vocal Challenge. Check it out -- my first toe dipped into the horror genre.
2. Reaching Out 🥳 Written for Vocal's Just a Minute Challenge. This one is a quickly paced heart-wrenching story touching on love lost and found, maybe. Read it and see.
3. When Pennies Rattle 🥳 Written for Vocal's Just a Minute Challenge - this fiction is chock full o' action! (Note: If you're inclined to know what happened before and after, read Lola, an 11 min read, but read it after you've read Pennies. Spoiler alerts apply... You'll find out why the gunman wanted someone dead.)
4. Effervescence 🥳 Written for Vocal's The Dragon Beside Me Challenge, this poem is inspired by and in honor of my grandmother.
5. The Eye of the Beholder 🥳 Written for Vocal's Inverse Poem Challenge. An inverse poem is read top to bottom and then bottom to top (one line at a time). Such pieces require the reader to consider two perspectives in one poem.
6. Thursdays with Josh 🥳 Nonfiction article -- not written for any challenge. This piece celebrates the writers' room created by two writers.
7. Creating: My Bliss 🥳 Written for a 2021 Vocal Challenge, this nonfiction essay features photos and background on several of my hobbies (painting, wand craft, jewelry, photography, sewing...).

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*** Challenge Entries ***

The following section contains pieces I've written for officially sponsored Vocal Challenges. None of these won, but I could not be prouder of each one. Think you'll find some new favs here, too.

Vocal's In Eclipse Challenge

Crisis Averted? | Every Time You Fall | Evolution | I See What You're Doing | Tattletales | Wonder 💛 (fav entry for this challenge)

Vocals' Love Unravelled Challenge

Into The Woods | Intensive Care | Wet Signature | 🏅Mother Mine (Runner's-Up)

Vocal's Whispering Woods Challenge

Origin | On My Way 💛 | Sacrificial Limbs (all three are strong pieces but my fav is On My Way)

Vocals's Snow Micro Challenge

Overland Pass 💛 (heartfelt emotional fav)

Vocals's (No) Regrets Challenge

Spring Break 💛 | I Can Be A Damned Dummy 💛 (both are personal favs)

Vocals's Misplaced Challenge

Twisted String 💛 (another personal fav - emotional writing here)

Vocals's Just a Minute Challenge

When Pennies Rattle 🏅 Top Story, April 2024 | Ash (emotional and difficult) | On The 8th Day | Reaching Out 🏅 Top Story, April 2024

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*** Unofficial Challenges ***

The following section contains pieces I've written for unofficial challenges, meaning challenges not sponsored by Vocal, but instead issued by Vocal writers like me. For each unofficial challenge, the designer introduces a prompt (e.g., March Madness, a particular type of poem, fractured fairytales, poem retold in a short story, etc.).

Lots of incredible writing has come out of these challenges:

Ask Me In December (sponsored by Babs Iverson)

Never More (acrostic) | Season of the Sneeze (lyrics) | Yours Forever (poem) | Your Mission (Haiku)

Prompted #4 (sponsored by Randy Baker - poem converted into a fictional short story; only one enter per person permitted)

Until We Meet Again (15 min read - one of my all time favs 🤩💕)

Unscrambled (sponsored by Heather Hubler)

Consequences | Double Fisted

The Story of Humanity (sponsored by Kayleigh Fraser)

when it had ended first place | god's prayer (personal fav) | I Give You The World | Us and Them | In the beginning

F'd Up Fairytales (sponsored by L.C. Schäfer)

Doc Is In | Feelings for the Monster | One Gruff's Enough | The Long Con

Write Club (sponsored by RM Stockton)

The Butcher's Daughter 🏅 Selected as Top 10 - March 2024 (prompt: March Madness) | Good Boy

Lab Rat - April 2024 (prompt: Artificial Intelligence; one of my all-time, all around favs 💛)

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*** UnChallenged ***

This section highlights many pieces I've shared on Vocal expressly for the love of writing. I don't write intending to participate in challenges and competitions. I write because it makes me happy, and lately I can't sleep if I don't write. The following are grouped by Duration, then Community, then Alphabetically. (If you're looking for a particular Community first, use Vocal's filters on my page.)

Less than 1 minute reads

Poets Community

Poem Type: Fib

Listen

Poem Type: Haiku

Beyond the Pale | Dogwood | melt with you | Not Here | Pi Day |

Power of the gods | prey | Punks a series of Haikus. True stories, but not the whole story. Some things I'll take to the grave. |

Rake | Spiders |

Poem Type: Inverse

The Eye of the Beholder 🏅 Top Story February 2024

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1 minute reads

Poets Community

• Apartment 10B Social commentary
• A Remembrance of Willow's 💔 Haunting, rhyming poem on the devastation of Alzheimers. Innocent lines hide the tumultuous world the narrator endures.
• Ballerina All she wants for Christmas
• Broken Angel 💔 Heartbreaking. True story, but not my true story.
• Cherry Blossoms Memories mixed with dreams
• Concentric Circles Surreal poem about mental illness.
• Did She Go A short, lightly sad poem for my late friend, Christine, who introduced me to the fine arts of wandering and letting go.
• Fawn For my father. Written before Vocal allowed writers to add Warnings. Not suitable for all readers.
• Final Act of Innocence Haunting, honest, tender, sweetly heartbreaking -- about the costs of aging.
• Fire Shadows Me Magnet poetry!
• Frog Dig the layers.
• Human Are we not.
• Jamaica A lyrical piece. My husband spurred me to write something "happy" -- this is the result. Me, completely out of my comfort zone.
• Jenny not indulgent -- for a real child and the parent who sees her.
• Last Christmas 💔 a haunting free style poem -- the narrator finds a hidden gem.
• Lost Piper of Dirt Town free style poem that peers over the shoulder of a character who has been knocking at my door for a long while now.
• Love's Wake 💔 A tale of love turns tragic. You won't see it coming, and neither does the narrator. Its impact won't soon leave you.
• Mourning 💔 True story, but not my true story. For Tim, and the woman who loved him.
• Sailors' Dream My first sonnet! Wrote this poem as a 9-year-old 4th grader. It earned an A+. Been hooked on poetry happily ever after. Inspired, sort of obviously, by Gordon Lightfoot's song, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. RIP.
• Sounds of Boyhood The innocence of youth expressed through in sound.
• Targeted Not suitable for all readers -- contains description of an assault.
• The Dance Untamed short poem that spins its way into the reader's heart. It's dazzling if I say so myself.
• The Great Barrier A surreal poem. Not suitable for all readers.
• The Memory of Elephants Remembrance of African adventures. Not my adventures, yet, but one day.
• (Unspoken) 😇 😢 ❤️ in honor of my late father-in-law, for whom no elegy suffices.
• Waiting The narrator finally has something to say.
• White Mountains 💔 The last night before news gets broken.

2 minute reads

Poets Community

• Last Time (Promising Esmerelda) Packs a powerful punch. Written before Vocal allowed Warnings. Not suitable for all readers.
• Ode to a Swing Set 1970's style. True story. In honor of my first, truest childhood love.
• Onward A fine poem about real love. Fact or fiction? Yes...

• Precipice ☠️ Revenge fantasy -- happy reading! Yeah, maybe not suitable for all readers.
• Shimmy The narrator isn't me, but reminds me of my younger self. The "father" is loosely based on my father and his father.

Horror Community

• Pack Animals (technically posted to Fiction, but should have been posted to Horror...)

3 minute reads

Beat Community

• My Life as a Roadie True story, but not the whole story because that would take a lifetime. RIP Tim.

Fiction Community

• Foreclosure A haunting, fictional account of a mostly true story about the loss of so much more than the family farm.

Wander Community

• Adrift A breezy nod to sailors and the mermaids who love them. Includes a shout-out to the band Great Big Sea.

4 to 6 minute reads

Fiction Community

• Even Assassins Get the Blues 4 min read. A fun piece that reminds us all that even assassins start somewhere. The title is inspired by Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Thematically unrelated. Cuz nobody can do Tom Robbins but Tom Robbins.

• Last Year's Cake 6 min read. Not so much about cake. Candy maybe... as in arm candy. Read to find out.
• Limited Run 4 min read. Subtle nod to Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants. The reader has to tease out what's really going on. Can you see it?
• Starting Line 5 min read. One of my all-time best. 💕
• Vulture ⚠️ 5 min read. Called "atmospheric," "nasty," and "visceral." I kinda dig this style of grunge. And the heroine is fascinating.

Futurism Community

• The Pairing 6 min read. Published to Futurism years ago. Were I to post it today, I'd post it to Fiction. Might not be suitable for all readers.

7+ minute reads

Fiction Community

• Bookbinder's Bag 12 min read. (a Six Sisters' Legend--a planned series in the works! Stay tuned.) Fun fantasy fiction featuring a wizard and a spot of magic, maybe.
• Lola 11 min read. Continues When Pennies Rattle (5 min read).

>>>⚠️ If you plan to read Pennies and Lola, to avoid spoilers, start with Pennies and then read Lola.

💀 Horror Community 💀

• Backyard Skulls 7 min read. That this one is posted to the Horror Community should be your first clue. Not for the faint hearted. Rather proud of this gem.

• Old Fear 12 min read. Reader discretion strongly advised! This one is Pure horror, and I don't say that lightly. One of my finest, if I say so myself.
• Rack 'em up 8 min read. Terrible title but I was exhausted when I posted it. I'd change it to "Racked" if I could. But Vocal doesn't allow it. Anyway, another dark horror short fiction. Horror lovers, you're welcome!

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*** Other Vocal Creators ***

This section offers my recommendations if you're interested in checking out work by other Vocal writers. These writers inspire, uplift, inform, and thrill. Enjoy!

Alex H Mittelman | Alyssa Nicole | Anna | Barb Dukeman |

Caroline Craven | Caroline Jane | Cathy Holmes | Conor Marko |

Dana Crandell | Dharrsheena Raja Segarran | D. J. Reddall |

Donna Renee | ema | F. Cade Swanson | Gargie S Anand | Hannah Moore |

JBaz | Joe O'Connor | John Cox | Josiah Nwoko | J. S. Wade |

Kay Husnick | Kayleigh Fraser | KB | Kendall Defoe | L.C. Schäfer |

Matthew Fromm | Mike Singleton - Mikeydred | Naveed |

Patrick M. Ohana | Paul Stewart | Phil Flannery | Randy Baker |

Randy Wayne Jellison-Knock | ROCK | Rowan Finley | sleepy drafts |

Stephen A. Roddewig | Suze Kay | zulfi bux

Know of others to include? Mention them in Comments!

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Top Recommendations:

1. John Cox has written two exceptional must-read series: Last Daughter of the Gods and Sins of the Reaper. Tremendous, thought-provoking writing.
2. Suze Kay has written an exceptional series Women Who Stay. Block time on your schedule now. Cozy up with a warm mug of yum. Get to it. You're welcome.

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*** Supporting Writing & Writers ***

If you enjoy what you read, please click the ❤️ . Gives the writer such joy! When you read, like, comment, subscribe, tip, and or pledge support, you make a Vocal writer's day, week, month, or year! And you help bring fractions of a penny their way. You have the power!

I also recommend checking out older posts on writers' pages. Take a risk. Dig a little. Tons of great writing awaits you!

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*** Social Media ***

• Mike Singleton - Mikeydred's Vocal Groups I Love. Mike provides a fantastic list of places and spaces where Vocal writers do social media (e.g., Facebook, Insta, X, Medium, etc.).
• Dharrsheena Raja Segarran's fantastic True Crime, Horror Story & Dark Poetry on Facebook. If those vibes are your thing. Terrifyingly sumptuous collection of writers!

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*** Shout Out ***

Dharrsheena Raja Segarran gets my vote for most hilarious commenter on Vocal!

And last but by no means least, thank-you's to Vocalists who inspired the idea for a Welcome article:

• Donna Renee
• Hannah Moore's The Contents Page

• L.C. Schäfer for Index
• Matthew Fromm for My Magical Library

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*** Final Thoughts ***

Thank you for reading! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Hi 👋🏻 Vocalists. I reciprocate with Comments as often as I can. Should I read but not comment and or ❤️ on your piece, please know that life is super busy and in no way reflects the quality of your content.

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Copyright © 04/25/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.