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Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here. 

Five Minutes One hundred words

Feb 15
Feb 15 Likeness

Alison Silverman

My uncle’s friend Alice has sent me an email with old photos attached.

Feb 14
Feb 14 Airborne Hell

A. Zaykova

Who said hell was a burning pit below? My hell is suspended ten kilometers above ground.

Feb 13
Feb 13 Birthday Call

Finnian Burnett

My mother calls at 4:17 p.m. the day before Thanksgiving to tell me I was born 51 years ago today.

Feb 10
Feb 10 Puppy Love

Christy Byerly

As they passed one another, their yearning was so intense that their bodies strained toward one another across the water.

Feb 9
Feb 9 Mother

Huma Farid

You, a woman steeped in tradition, find me utterly incomprehensible.

Feb 8
Feb 8 First Race

Elizabeth Christian

I shouldn’t have had expectations for C, but I was surprised when she was delayed in rolling …

Feb 7
Feb 7 Buttermilk

Laura Jacoby

There was enough food and enough clothing and enough room in our home when I was growing up, but only just enough.

Feb 6
Feb 6 Confidence Game

Thomas Mixon

I have always been a kid attracted to gaps, running my tongue through missing teeth, seeing what would fit in my belly button.

Feb 3
Feb 3 Unprotected

Emma Burnett

… could I at least get a tubal ligation or a hysterectomy?

Feb 2
Feb 2 Superstition

Sandra Hudson

A single penny shimmers against the steel interior.

Feb 1
Feb 1 The Old Trailer

Judy Brown Peacock

I would often sneak down the dirt road, hide behind a big oak, and watch the old man feed his chickens or work in his small garden.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Short Ride Home

Erin Taylor

As we walk down the aisle, crackly speakers on the bus walls begin to croon, “Sad eyes, turn the other way … .”

Jan 30
Jan 30 My Own Advice

Naazia Azhar

At work, I advise others to focus on communication.

Jan 27
Jan 27 At Dawn

Megan Reilley

“Make love to me.” Leave her. Stay for me.

Jan 26
Jan 26 Forget Not Love

Hope Kelpie

I am taking her pulse, her left wrist only, because her right hand is lightly held by a man.

Jan 25
Jan 25 Tethered Corn

Julia Clebsch

“Which way do you eat your corn? Lines or circles?”

Jan 24
Jan 24 The Check-In

Janice Vis

It’s almost midnight when they knock on the window of my basement apartment and ask me to come to the back door, and I do.

Jan 22
Jan 22 Nonstarter

Jim Latham

“I’m telling you,” my wife said, “since you’ll find out eventually.”

Jan 20
Jan 20 Family Therapy

Eliot Li

I’m staring at a “Short List Of Emotions.”

Jan 19
Jan 19 Joint?

Gwenette Gaddis

“That looks like a joint,” I say. “Yup,” she says.

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Five Minutes features micro-memoirs, hundred-word pieces about five minutes in a life.
We’d love to read your five. Submit here. 
Click through to our monthly newsletter (5minutes100words) and/or our weekly digest (fiveminutesweeklydigest), both on Substack.

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