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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

Dec 3
Dec 3 The Departure

K.G. Song

We waited for our flight out of my home country. Those few minutes seemed to last forever.

Dec 2
Dec 2 Smoke and Stain

Stacy Bias

My grandmother chain-smoked Virginia Slims, the long, white, pleasingly perfect cylinders a permanent fixture in the corner of her mouth.

Nov 29
Nov 29 Winter Wanderer

Laura Schep

A gust of frigid wind startles me as the scraggly-bearded stranger opens the passenger door and demands we drive him home.

Nov 27
Nov 27 Polarities

Swati Moheet Agrawal

Two of my cousins are profusely talking about their holiday to Japan.

Nov 26
Nov 26 Sonic Boom

Christine Khuri

Bzzz—the sound of the drone flies over the Beirut skies.

Nov 25
Nov 25 73 Cents

Kimberley Lovato

The principal’s eyes bulged behind square glasses.

Nov 22
Nov 22 Recharged

Lina Lau

My four-year-old daughter flits around the bedroom, darting, and I’m panicked she will collide with a sharp corner.

Nov 21
Nov 21 My Rhyme Crime

Lynn Kozlowski

The older kids are playing a word-guessing game with our mothers.

Nov 20
Nov 20 Minivan

Abdulrahim Jamil

Here comes another familiar face. Dang, he's looking this way!

Nov 19
Nov 19 Set the Scene

Yashaswini Sharma

If the world slipped off its axis and unravelled into oblivion, this is the moment that would play on the screen of my mind.

Nov 18
Nov 18 I'm Here

Lesléa Newman

My mother collapsed on a cruise ship and was airlifted to California.

Nov 18
Nov 18 Fresh Pasta?

Kate Pyontek

I rolled out the dough, transmuting kneaded ball into disc.

Nov 12
Nov 12 5:25 A.M.

M.E. Line

I was on my knees in the wheelchair, facing the hospital security guard.

Nov 11
Nov 11 Fresh Smiles

Theodore Wallbanger

Our preschool class prepped for the celebratory “roll to the bottom”; fifteen bodies, head to toe, with one hair-raising goal in mind.

Nov 8
Nov 8 Cambrian Girl

Linda Kohler

Tears partway up the mountain because she’s collected too many rocks and we tell her she can’t carry them all to the top.

Nov 7
Nov 7 The Throne

Nilsa Mariano

The truck stops. Today is the day they come to get the wheelchair.

Nov 5
Nov 5 Finding Joy

Alaknanda Sengupta

New Year’s Eve night, 1979. The Neelachal Express is hurtling down the tracks at full speed.

Nov 4
Nov 4 Special Hunger

Kathleen Joy Anderson

My twin grandsons were tired and hungry, and the trip from their preschool to my place was fraught with arguments, crying, and punching.

Nov 1
Nov 1 Covenant

Sarp Sozdinler

Pim suddenly elbow-strikes my jaw and somersaults to say, “Hope you like soup, motherfucker …

Oct 29
Oct 29 Crash Cart

Lisa Conquet

The elevator door opened to chaos. A patient was coding.

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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. 
To receive our monthly newsletter, Five Minutes More, email susanna@fiveminutelit.com with the subject line: Newsletter.
To receive our weekly digest, containing the week’s stories, email susanna@fiveminutelit.com with the subject line: Digest.

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