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New stories you’ll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
Vocal Bonus Leaderboard: 05/08/2024
Welcome to the weekly update of the Leaderboard! We're thrilled to showcase Vocal's most discussed stories, popular picks, and rising stars. Let's dive into this past week's standout contributors and their remarkable achievements.
Vocal TeamPublished about 9 hours ago in ResourcesMemorable
When lightening cracks and everything shudders I always think I am the white in between existing for precisely one flashing moment
Dog Number 13
May 15, 2023 Strange things are happening. Good-strange, bad-strange, and strange-strange. For starters, me and all my litter mates are able to stand. Some of us can even wiggle around in a clumsy manner. I say wiggle because it isn’t quite walking but it isn’t quite crawling. We just sort of stand and wiggle and fall and take a few steps and then crawl and then get up again. It is in this manner we are able to move around to some degree and explore our surroundings. Naturally we cannot go far. Which is ok, I suppose, because I am very small and I need my mother for food and my siblings to keep me warm and I feel very loved and comforted by them in some way, so I don’t know why I would need to go very far. Having four legs, I must admit, is very strange. It is not a surprise to me that it is challenging to coordinate them to move in the order they need to move. But I can get around a little bit, my eyes can stay open for much longer periods of time now, and it is easier to understand what is happening. So this is new.
Morgan LongfordPublished a day ago in ChaptersThey Could Live On
If You don't take the stories that You find Residing within Your mind And use ink on the page to let them lie When Your time comes, Your stories will go with You
Thavien YliasterPublished a day ago in PoetsEnroute
The stars and planets all whipped by as Deirdre's crystalline craft sped past them. Her people, the Vlondans, had discovered that the mineral Dianthium which grew so readily on their home world not only kept their hair pink but also was a perfect material for engineering spacecraft from.
Alicia AnspaughPublished 6 days ago in ArtConfronting My Childhood Fear
The first memory that comes to mind when I think of fear in my childhood is about being brave. I was probably 8 years old and spent a few weeks in summer at my grandparents’ farm.
Gabriela Trofin-TatárPublished 3 days ago in ConfessionsThe Unseen Pie
"What's this pie?" I asked as my tour group and I walked out of a restaurant in Rome's Jewish Ghetto, having sampled an array of antipasti.
Caroline JanePublished about 17 hours ago in FeastMy Fire
Too many are owned by their possessions Almost nothing belongs to me alone To my master, I pose no glib questions My will belongs to him; I never groan
D. J. ReddallPublished a day ago in PoetsThe Meeting
READ "PART I" HERE: My third adventure outside the United States was to Putian, China (the second was with a college friend to London for Spring Break—a unique choice that I'll write about later). It wasn't exactly a study abroad opportunity, but I was still in college, and a philosophy professor recommended the experience to me. She knew I was interested in Eastern philosophy, focusing on Daoism, and thought a trip to a Buddhist temple in China might be up my alley. She was right.
The Orange, the Soap & the Actress
I let the peel fall to the dusty black floor. “It was a queer sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs,” I began.
Marie WilsonPublished a day ago in JournalYou've Got to Be Cutthroat to be a Writer
It takes real grit to be a writer - a creator of stories. Days when you don't feel like writing and would rather be doing anything else.
Jasmine AguilarPublished a day ago in PoetsA Siberian Story: Tag, You’re It
Snow shimmers in -24 degrees. Trees that usually wear their forest green coats are dusted by frost, looming tall and piercing the pastel coloured sky like sentinels for a citadel of silence. Finland is made of frozen moments, standing so still in between breaths of icy air. It’s serene. It’s like a dream. It’s the most enchanting thing I’ve ever seen.
Six Feet Under
Buried alive. What a horrible way to go. Yazz lay there, in her own thoughts. What else could she do? She was hungry, thirsty, tired, mentally, and physically exhausted, and more than anything, she was bored. She hoped she would die of boredom before anything else, anything else would've been more painful. Like many people had, she and her friends had talked about what they reckon the worst ways to die were, it was a morbid subject, but it came up every now and again. Yazz had always been one to argue her point on drowning, others had mentioned burning alive, slowly and painfully bleeding to death, hung drawn and quartered, and being starved to death. It was strange that none of them had considered being buried alive, it had never come up. But now, she was thinking back to those conversations her and her friends had had, how could they have not thought about it? It took a lot longer than the others, you were completely confined, you couldn't move or do anything, you just had to wait, until your body was physically unable to support a life system anymore, which could take up to four days. Four! By far the longest out of all of them. She recounted some of these conversations just to try and pass the time, anything to pass the time. It was difficult to know how much time had passed since she had been underground, it was difficult to know anything. There were many things that Yazz didn't know, she didn't know where she was, she didn't know how she'd got into the coffin, she'd just woken up there. Yazz also didn't know what time it was, or even what day it was, she guessed at Tuesday, it was Sunday evening when she'd been buried alive, intentionally, and although it had felt like weeks had passed, she was still alive, which means she hadn't died from dehydration, and therefore it couldn't have been more than four days.
Liam StormPublished 2 days ago in FictionAs The Sun Rises
As the sun rises casting its morning glow, I stand at the edge of the sea, shrouded in darkness, My mind feels the shadows of a depressing low.
Carol TownendPublished 3 days ago in Poets3 Mistakes You Are Making In Your Novel That Are Boring Your Reader
The last thing you want a reader to be when experiencing the world of your novel is to be bored to tears. This leads to them either returning your book for their money back, placing it on the shelf never being touched again, or it being donated so that maybe someone else will find enjoyment in it.
Elise L. BlakePublished 4 days ago in WritersThe Invisble amongst us
"In January 2021, I was driving to see my mother at a local hospital. Traffic halted suddenly, and I was so happy I did not strike the vehicle in front of me. I gazed up in my rear-view mirror just as the vehicle behind struck my little sub-compact vehicle. "
Bruce Curle `Published 4 days ago in PsycheFifteen seconds to violet
Victor regarded the electronic card around his neck thoughtfully, the numbers rising the tiniest fraction by the second. The bar almost looked like it wasn’t moving at all, if he didn’t look long enough.
LC MinnitiPublished 6 days ago in FictionA Good Day Coming
* Gotta start the morning on an up-swing Opportunities are on the rise Ordinary days can lose the zip- zing Dealing with the rain in cloudy skies
Kelli Sheckler-AmsdenPublished 6 days ago in PoetsInshallah
Istanbul is a city bristling with life, a place where past and present, sacred and profane, intertwine under the watchful gaze of the Sultan Ahmet Mosque. As I explore this crossroads of cultures with Maya, my nine-year-old niece and the daughter of my late brother-in-law Frank, and my wife Nadia, Frank's sister, I find myself on a journey not just through Istanbul's history, but also into the depths of my own beliefs. Staying with Maya and her mother Elvan, my sister-in-law, I begin to see the city anew through their eyes, and to understand why James Baldwin said it "revived" him.
Geoffrey PhilpPublished 3 days ago in WanderDying Later
Cold bites with mean blue teeth, and it bit her savagely now. Cheeks and nose-tip raw, and the rest of her fairly frozen to match, all the way down to her bones.
L.C. SchäferPublished 6 days ago in Fiction