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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 2
Dec 2 Time with Teeth

Caitlin Horrocks

We finish the night’s bedtime reading, my kindergartener son’s latest lost tooth under his pillow.

Dec 1
Dec 1 To Say No

Susanna Baird

On the hidden road of deep country we head over sandy roads east to west.

Nov 28
Nov 28 My Santa Kids

Jim DeFilippi

I sat beside my Christmas tree, remembering Christmas Eves when my two grandkids, mostly grown now, were still small.

Nov 26
Nov 26 The Getaway

Amy Rogers

I’d emptied the apartment and stuffed the car with the last of my belongings.

Nov 25
Nov 25 SoHo Nanny

Arianne Oviedo

“My parents pay you enough to get me ice cream whenever I want,” says the kid I pick up every day from school.

Nov 24
Nov 24 New Message

Barbara Ridley

Early Thursday morning her time zone; late Wednesday mine.

Nov 22
Nov 22 We Promised

Heather Maat

“Let us see! Please!” I demanded. “No, you will just scream and say eww,” my grandmother said.

Nov 20
Nov 20 Teenage Freedom

Meg McGovern

1977. I hopped into Allison’s blue Volkswagen Bug.

Nov 19
Nov 19 Instructions

Héctor Hernández

Shoes. They were the first items to come off.

Nov 14
Nov 14 Breathing

R.S. Nelson

My blood runs cold, even though the fan is barely moving above our heads.

Nov 13
Nov 13 Springtime

Catherine Humikowski

Two motionless hatchlings, featherless and translucent, punctuate the lawn.

Nov 11
Nov 11 Relief

Dart Humeston

It was 1989, the height of the savings and loan crisis. Olga loved her job at the bank, but still slid a resignation memo across my desk.

Nov 10
Nov 10 Forgotten

Bliss Goldstein

I sat in the Orthodox Jewish synagogue surrounded by women with head coverings, separated from my husband by a glass demi-wall.

Nov 7
Nov 7 Spilled Milk

Brad Snyder

Despite my conversation with the doorman—“very important package”—despite my incessant refreshing of the DHL tracking page . . .

Nov 6
Nov 6 Date with Italy

Margie Haenseler

The waiter uncorked the Chianti at the table.

Nov 4
Nov 4 Between

Gina de Mendonca

I got off work at three and walked the long way home through the cemetery.

Nov 3
Nov 3 Homemade Raft

Tiara Ulfah

It has been pouring for three days and it continues to rain, relentlessly and heavily.

Nov 1
Nov 1 Echo Park

Jim DeFilippi

I was watching the classic movie Chinatown with the sound turned up because of my poor hearing.

Oct 30
Oct 30 Poetry Slam

Amy Asherah

A kaleidoscope of face paint, dreadlocks, a silk scarf, a biker jacket, camouflage chock full of zippers.

Oct 28
Oct 28 Forever

Preeti Talwai

Forever means continual, eternal, endless.

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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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