Navigation: Nonfiction
Advocacy, articles, journals, recipes, playlists, and unofficial writing challenges!
Here's the key:
⭐= Top Stories
®️= Contest Runner-Ups
📋 = Stories that Landed on the Leaderboard
👍= tipped stories
🗑️ = Dumpster Diving Propaganda
⛓️💥= Anticapitalist Read List
🎃= Halloween Reading List
🎄= Christmas Reading List
🔉= Stories with embedded readings (if you prefer audio and can tolerate my voice, give them a shot!)
🎶= Stories paired with music (these stories include embedded music from youtube which might improve your reading experience)
(The Key applies to posts 1 and 2 as well)
Category: Nonfiction
Open Letters
- ®️An Open Letter to Myself-- A challenge to my own damn self.
- Thanks to My Awesome Kiddo-- WC: 1,000
- Thanks to My Incredible Mom-- WC: 994
- An Open Letter to My Idiotic Testicles: You are the worst and I Hate You-- This is really just a public bitch session towards my own jack-ass of a body. WC: 1,862
Advocacy Pieces
Social Commentary/ Opinion Pieces
- 🎶 Are You Free? -- On concept of biological determinism and the question of free will. Absurdist slant. WC: 3513
- ⭐📋 Speaking Ill of the Dying-- On the assassination of Charlie Kirk, WC: 2,890
- 🎶 I Want-- A wishlist and commentary about the Law of Attraction, WC: 3,398
- 🎄⛓️💥 Happy Holidays-- Are you Happy with the Number of Gimmicks in Your Cart?-- Criticism of Merry Madness WC: 2,986
- 🎶🎄⛓️💥 How to Max out Your Black Friday Savings-- A money-saving instructional, WC: 880
- 🎶Home is where the ____ is-- What makes or breaks a home? WC: 1,496
- ⛓️💥 🗑️ Wasted Words-- The worst thing I've ever seen thrown away. Source: a hobbyist dumpster diver.
- ⛓️💥I Resign from Being Poor-- To contradict prosperity preachers, WC: 1,498
- ⛓️💥Did You Hear About Target? --Target backtracked their DEI goals.
My Personal Journey/ About Me
- Why I'm Writing on Vocal-- WC 916
- ⛓️💥 New Year, New Art-- Some of my goals for 2025.
Informative/ Articles
- Senseless: Why Does My Baby's Poop Smell Like Slightly Burned Hummus? -- Of life with Covid induced anosmia and parosmia, links to articles that explore the science. WC: 2910
- 🎶10 Concussion Related Reasons You Shouldn't Smash Your Skull on Something Hard-- Of life with a concussion. Probably not gonna surprise anyone here, but there are some sciencey points and articles to back things up. WC: 3,560
Unofficial WRITING CHALLENGES!
- 🎶Do Your WORST-- Write a playlist of unbearable music! -- WC: 2,899
Playlists
Recipes, Instructionals, and Lifehacks
- 🎶Akra: A Haitian Recipe-- How to make this delicious Caribbean food for yourself! WC: 1,945
- Drunken Pizza?-- A made up recipe from an unreliable narrator. Sounds like it could actually be yummy though. I dunno. WC: 1,119
- 🗑️T.R.A.S.H.B.A.G.S-- A dumpster diving guide. WC: 3,289
Authors Note:
If you're looking for my fiction, go here!
The beginning of that post includes an honest look at my earnings on Vocal, which could be useful for anyone who's trying to decide whether to pay for a Vocal+ membership.
At the bottom of the introduction you'll see the same key again. Most of what I write on this site is fiction, so that Category map has many more links than this one. Special sub-categories closest to my heart are: absurdism, Franciscan, and horror!
As always I'm wide open to any and all feedback and will only ever appreciate whatever criticism you might be willing to share :)
If you're looking for my poetry, go here!
Most of these poems were written as contest entries-- which I'm thankful for. If I hadn't started writing poetry for challenges I might never have started writing poetry, period. I never realized that poetry could be so fun to create :)
All of these profile maps are going to remain pinned on my profile, as "living" documents/ tables of contents. So check back periodically if you're interested in reading more or seeing what's new.
This year I'll be working on a couple special projects related to vocal... I'm going to be narrating many of my stories, so if audio readings are interesting to you, keep an eye out for the 🔉icon!
I'll also be writing advocacy pieces for other artists and creatives-- from writers to musicians to visual artists! So things may look different next time you're here.
About the Creator
Sam Spinelli
Trying to make human art the best I can, never Ai!
Help me write better! Critical feedback is welcome :)
reddit.com/u/tasteofhemlock
instagram.com/samspinelli29/
Keep reading
More stories from Sam Spinelli and writers in FYI and other communities.
A Failed Artist, A Disillusioned Poet, An Underpaid Game Show Host
I took my son and niece to Gori, a small town in Georgia where Joseph Stalin was born. They talked me into visiting the Stalin's Museum, the largest in the post-Soviet space. I had resisted going there because I just can't stand the monster and know enough about him, or so I thought.
By Lana V Lynx7 days ago in FYI
The Silence After Trying
The silence didn’t arrive suddenly. It came slowly, like dust settling after a room has been emptied. At first, there were noises—emails opening, notifications buzzing, the familiar hum of effort. Messages sent. Applications submitted. Conversations started with careful optimism. There was movement, and movement felt like progress.
By Talha khan6 days ago in FYI
Comments (2)
This is an impressive body of work, Sam! If you started doing the audio stories, I missed them. But where do you keep the audio files, YouTube?
Oooo, you're gonna be doing audio as well. That's so cool! Not my thing though, unless I can increase the speed. I listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos at 2x speed, lol. I'm just too impatient