Resources
From tips and tricks to product updates and inspiration, explore our resources to learn how to grow as a Vocal creator.
Challenges
Mismatch Challenge Winners
Blending genres isn’t about stacking elements side by side. It’s about what happens when two sets of expectations refuse to cooperate. The strongest entries in the Mismatch Challenge understood that tension and leaned into it. Rather than smoothing the edges, these stories let their chosen genres complicate one another, creating friction that carried through voice, structure, and consequence.
By Vocal Curation Team12 days ago in Resources
Public Announcement Challenge Winners
For the Public Announcement Challenge, writers were asked to work inside voices built for control. These were notices, warnings, and updates meant to inform rather than confess. The strongest entries committed to that form and didn't break from it. Corporate memos, formal government alerts, and internal policy language were held consistently, allowing emotion, fear, grief, or humor to surface indirectly through pressure rather than declaration. The following poems recognize the voice of authority, and let human feeling slip through despite all its rules and restraint.
By Vocal Curation Team17 days ago in Resources
Instructions Included Challenge Winners
For the Instructions Included challenge, we asked writers to tell a story through instructions and to trust the form to carry what could not be said outright. Across the top entries, that trust paid off in many different ways.
By Vocal Curation Team26 days ago in Resources
The Ritual of Winter Challenge Winners
Welcome to the Winners Announcement for The Ritual of Winter challenge. This prompt focused on winter rituals and the meaning that settles into them over time. The top pieces stay grounded in ordinary acts and repeated routines, letting winter shape the work through pace, attention, and restraint.
By Vocal Curation Team2 months ago in Resources
FPS: The Last Flame Challenge Winners
Welcome to our first Winners Announcement of the year and to the final challenge in the Fall Poetry Series. The Last Flame invited writers to sit with endings, using fire as a central image to consider what remains when something burns out: ash, warmth, memory, silence, or the faint promise of what comes next. The strongest pieces treated endings as gradual rather than sudden, allowing them to flicker, dim, and linger.
By Vocal Curation Team2 months ago in Resources
FPS: Villanelle of Regret Challenge Winners
Some feelings don’t fade. They repeat. The Villanelle of Regret challenged poets to write into that return. To let regret, longing, and obsession build with each pass, rather than resolve. The strongest entries trusted repetition to carry the weight.
By Vocal Curation Team2 months ago in Resources
The Forgotten Room Challenge Winners
Some doors stay shut because crossing the threshold changes something. In The Forgotten Room, writers stepped into spaces thick with dust, memory, and silence. What they found there wasn’t always safe or clear, but it was honest, layered, and unforgettable. Here, setting isn’t background noise; it’s the heart of the story, carrying the weight of what’s been hidden or avoided.
By Vocal Curation Team3 months ago in Resources
FPS: Harvest of Memory Challenge Winners
It's that time again, welcome back to the Fall Poetry Series! What do we carry, and what carries us? The Harvest of Memory challenge invited poets to gather what they couldn’t bear to lose, a moment, a person, a feeling, and hold it in language. The submissions were full of quiet power: some aching, some joyful, many both at once.
By Vocal Curation Team3 months ago in Resources
Maps of the Self Challenge Winners
Happy Thanksgiving Eve. We’re especially grateful today for the ways you show up with honesty, creativity, and heart. We all carry maps. Of who we’ve been, what we’ve felt, and the paths we’ve taken to get here. In this Challenge, we asked you to chart something that can’t be folded up or pinned to a wall, to trace a shape made of memory, identity, or change.
By Vocal Curation Team3 months ago in Resources
