Hi, Fivers:
We’ve been impressed by the high-school writers who submit to Five Minutes, so much so we’re launching a high-school spinoff, The Hallway! Read more from the editors below, and have your high schoolers send in their writing.
Susanna and the Team at Five Minutes
Welcome to The Hallway!
Hello! This is The Hallway, the high-school branch of Five Minutes, edited by Kate Meen and Tenley Cederholm. Kate, Five Minutes’ submissions and newsletter editor, enjoys reading books of any genre, though always appreciates a good fantasy novel. She is also fond of writing, knitting, and drawing. She hopes to one day be a journalist. Tenley, a past Five Minutes editorial intern, loves reading all genres, especially horror, but writing is her passion. She also has a love for interviewing, music, and fashion design. She hopes to one day be a journalist and a singer. Susanna Baird will serve as The Hallway’s advisor, and once we’re up and running, we’ll invite a past contributor to join as guest reader each month.
To submit your piece, go through the Five Minute’s Submittable page and check the box that shows you are a high schooler. You can submit up to three pieces a month. We’ve started reading, and plan to accept between five and ten pieces a month.
Come to Salem (Massachusetts, US)
Plans are underway for our next Five Live event in Salem, Massachusetts, to take place on Saturday, September 6 as part of the Salem Literary Festival. If you happen to be nearby on that date and want to join us and read one of your Fives we’d love to have you. Email susanna@fiveminutelit.com.
Goodbye May
Thank you again to our May readers, Patti Jo Amerein, Rebecca Ingalls, Tammy Komoff, Jack Lazonde, M.E. Line, Arianna Smith, and Natalie Wong. They read and scored 95 pieces! (Our editors are currently processing April scores.)
Hello June
Cassandra Caverhill (“Rings”) is a Canadian-American poet, editor, and creative writing instructor. She’s the author of Mayflies (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and is a prose reader for The Chestnut Review. A karaoke and cycling enthusiast, Cassandra lives and teaches in the borderlands of Windsor, Ontario. cassandracaverhill.com.
Debbie Feit's (“Away. And Back.”, “By My Side”) poetry chapbook, The Power of the Plastic Fork: A Daughter's Highly Unorthodox Kaddish, is forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. Her work has appeared in Abandon Journal, Harbor Review, HAD, RockPaperPoem, and on her mother's bulletin board. A nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn, she would kill for a good black and white.
Molly Freedenberg (“Unmasked”) (she/her) is a disabled writer based in Southern California. She holds a writing degree from Reed College, and her essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in publications including Bust and Five Minutes. She writes about life with ME/CFS on her Substack Well, Actually.
Sharon Goldberg (“Toothpaste”) has published work in The Gettysburg Review, New Letters, The Louisville Review, Cold Mountain Review, River Teeth, Green Mountains Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Southern Indiana Review, The Jellyfish Review, Best Small Fictions, and elsewhere. She is an avid but cautious skier and enthusiastic world traveler.
Héctor Hernández (“Sticky Rice” forthcoming) received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, which he put to good use for nearly 27 years. He is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, CaféLit, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Literally Stories.
Jack Lazonde, a French/Australian student, studies foreign languages at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. Jack is particularly drawn to the writings of Rosario Ferré, Guy de Maupassant, Truman Capote, and Italo Calvino.
Anna Oh (“Exam Score”) is an aspiring writer from Singapore who enjoys exploring themes of existentialism. Her other hobbies include avoiding human interaction and finding her place in the universe. She also runs the Critical Thinking Café on Substack.
As always Founding Reader Bobbi Lerman and Editor Susanna Baird are reading.
High Fives
Congratulations …
— to Sherri Alms for publishing “Two Too Many Martinis” with Cosmic Daffodil Journal
— to Amanda Gibson for publishing “Fingers of Light” with Bryant Literary Review
— to Debbie Feit for publishing “Tiptoeing Through the Trip Wires, or How to Have a Conversation With Your Nine-Year-Old Son” with Rock Paper Poem and “#126” with Harbor Review
— to M.R. Mandell for publishing “Olivia Newton-John Riedell Roller Skates” with SWWIM and The Last Girl with Finishing Line Press
— to Arianna Smith for publishing "Modern Love" / "Teamwork" with OFIC Magazine
— to A. Zaykova for publishing Galaxy Grifter with Orbit
—to Jennifer Perrine for publishing Beautiful Outlaw, winner of the Kelsey Street Press QTBIPOC Book Prize
Head to our Contributor Updates page to share your good news. If we missed shouting out a piece of your good news, please remind us.
Submissions Spotlight: The Citron
Review
The Citron Review, “a journal of brief literature,” publishes four times per year. They publish short poetry, flash fiction, micro fiction, and flash creative nonfiction. Micro submissions are limited to 100 words; flash fiction and CNF are limited to 1,000 words. To submit, go here.
Visit past Spotlights for more inspo. Know a journal Newsletter Editor Kate should highlight? Email susanna@fiveminutelit.com, subject line “Submissions Spotlight Idea.” Must publish nonfiction.
Prompts
Inspired by our May pieces.
sideways • did not go • visit • decorate • theatrical • poked out • fried chicken • English • planting • huge tent • proclaim • lab partner • pond • heavy rain • pack the house • carved away • old bag • bench
Lines & Links
If you don’t want to miss a piece, sign up for our Weekly Digest. Email susanna@fiveminutelit.com, subject line: Digest. Every first line from May below!
The autumn sun shined sideways. — “Not Just Yet” by Lisa K. Buchanan
I didn’t go to Marie’s funeral. — “Dammed” by Guy Cramer
“Who are you here to visit,” — “Reentry” by Linda Dreeben
My cousins are sitting at our dining room table, folding paper airplanes and decorating bookmarks with stickers. — “Just Soccer” by Kat Abdallah
The horse pill mocks me from the counter while my husband demonstrates, tossing back M&Ms with theatrical head-tilts. — “Pill Patrol” by Tiffany Harris
There was an incident in the other ward and we found each other poked out from our doors to listen in. — “Christina” by Robert Hoekman Jr
My father died as I stood in line for a fried chicken sandwich. — “Sandwich” by Sunday Dutro
Since I knew no English, I was placed a year back into grade two when I came to Canada. — “Here We Erase” by Aga Bijos
I’m about to kiss my son’s forehead, planting sweet dreams, when he turns as though struck. — “Resting” by Chelsea Utecht
In under a minute, they rolled out the huge tent and covered the fallen horse. — “Saratoga” by Jim DeFilippi
Impatient and expectant, we waited all weekend for Arthur to proclaim his presence. — “Rainbow” by Krissie Mulvoy Williams
As our professor explains the mouse euthanasia protocol, my lab partner leans over, whispering to me, “Why do they keep calling it ‘sacrificing?’” — “A Little Prayer” by Sofia Eun-Young Guerra
We walk to a nearby pond to skate wearing our rubber boots, as we don’t have money for skates. — “Sweeping Ice” by Sheila M. Byrnes
Heavy rain became an unexpected companion on my first visit to Mount Teide. — “Heaven” by Miguel Ángel Calvo
People pack the house. — “At Ten” by Trisha Prosser
At sixteen, your once-round face is sharply angled, boyhood carved away. — “Driving Lessons” by Elizabeth Maria Naranjo
Cleaning out closets, I come across an old bag I forgot I ever had, brown with brass studs. — “Artifact” by Gretchen Wiker
Every morning, she is there, sitting on the old, rusting clifftop bench, staring out at the ocean. — “Poor Substitute” by John Holmes