Resources
From tips and tricks to product updates and inspiration, explore our resources to learn how to grow as a Vocal creator.
Latest
The 2023 Vocal Reverb and Yearly Leaderboard
This week's Leaderboard looks a little different. We're fashionably late to the 2024 party, and we know it — blame it on a bit too much coffee or perhaps a few too many attempts at perfecting that Villanelle Challenge.
By Justin @ Vocal2 years ago in Resources
Identity Challenge Winners
Sam Eliza Green has been a creator with Vocal since the summer of 2021, and has published 114 pieces — warm congratulations on their first Challenge win. Their free-flowing poem, You, and I, and She takes first place in our Identity Challenge, its short lines a conversation about being and feeling, one which inhabits emotion with exploratory language. We loved the images of a winter “when nothing feels right/ and wrong has carved/ into my skin like/ the sharp snap/ of abandonment.” Image and sensation do a slow dance that draws the reader in.
By Vocal Curation Team2 years ago in Resources
Smooth Challenge Winners
Life is rough, sometimes; we could all do with a little smoothing out. In the entries to our Smooth challenge, there were stones and fur, water and ice, the wind over soft skin. Congratulations to Kate Kastelberg, our winner with ‘New Stones in the River: A Life Insured’, a truly lovely sestina that indicates loss but gathers memory into joy. “The years since the river was born,/ I have sat on its stony shores, passing/ time’s spells: feel roughshod rock turn to velvet as lilies bloom right/ from the water’s surface, slowly at first, earning/ their place in the sun.” Kate’s terrific poem is a reminder that a stricture — like one of our challenge rubrics — can be a gift rather than a constraint, an opportunity to take a concept and make it one’s own.
By Vocal Curation Team2 years ago in Resources
📢 Raise Your Voice Thread: 12/21/2023
Our “Raise Your Voice Threads” are hosted every other Thursday at 12PM ET to offer creators more avenues to uncover exceptional stories on Vocal. As we are continuously searching for fresh creators and inspiring stories, this thread provides an opportunity to exchange and discuss the stories that have moved and motivated us on Vocal.
By Raise Your Voice by Vocal2 years ago in Resources
Arid Challenge Winners
An actual desert, or a desert of the mind? This time we gave you the ending of your tale, an evocative line: "Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind." We couldn’t wait to see where your creativity would take you, and the entries to the Arid challenge did not disappoint.
By Vocal Curation Team2 years ago in Resources
Vocal Bonus Leaderboard: 12/13/2023
As we dive into another week of vibrant creativity on Vocal, we're thrilled to celebrate the voices that echoed the loudest and stories that resonated the deepest. From the spirited discussions sparked by Lamar Wiggins' "A Vocalite Holiday 2023" to the touching pieces by Heather Hubler, Kendall Defoe, and Brenton F, our community continues to flourish.
By Vocal Team2 years ago in Resources
📢 Raise Your Voice Thread: 12/7/2023
Our “Raise Your Voice Threads” are hosted every other Thursday at 12PM ET to offer creators more avenues to uncover exceptional stories on Vocal. As we are continuously searching for fresh creators and inspiring stories, this thread provides an opportunity to exchange and discuss the stories that have moved and motivated us on Vocal.
By Raise Your Voice by Vocal2 years ago in Resources
Producing a Vocal Story With Your Phone Or Tablet
Oh, no! Your PC or Chromebook is on the blitz, and you must get a new one or wait for repairs. Or, instead, you’ve gone on vacation and forgotten to bring your laptop with you. Either way, writing and posting to Vocal is now put on hold until you return to your device or buy a new one.
By Mother Combs2 years ago in Resources
Neolomicro Challenge Winners
Traditional. Worthless. Obscene. Perfectly ordinary — and extremely useful — words, aren’t they? Yet according to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, they hadn’t been a part of the English language until the Bard coined them; there are many others in his remarkable lexicon.
By Vocal Curation Team2 years ago in Resources
