
Lifelong Learning
Recommend a book or podcast that’s taught you something valuable.
Prizes
- First place:
- $1,000
- Second place:
- $500
- Third place:
- $250
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Jun 12, 2020
Submissions closed
Jun 19, 2020 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Jun 23, 2020
Prizes
- First place:
- $1,000
- Second place:
- $500
- Third place:
- $250
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Jun 12, 2020
Submissions closed
Jun 19, 2020 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Jun 23, 2020
About this challenge
Let’s continue listening, learning, and taking action. For this Challenge, we want our community to come together and help each other out by sharing resources that can help us all educate ourselves.
We want to know one book, article, or podcast that has taught you a particularly valuable lesson and that you'd recommend others turn to to help educate themselves as well. We’re talking about that one read or listen that really got you rethinking what you'd never questioned before. Let’s get deep into why you loved it and why you think everyone out there should include it in their list of tools to better themselves.
Tips
To make this collection of resources even more helpful, make it visual and easy for others to quickly access what you're recommending:
- Podcast: embed your podcast or the episode you learned the most from using our embed feature. You can lean more about embedding rich media here.
- Article: Link people to the article you read so they can read it too—you can also use the embed feature for this!
- Book: Suggest local bookstores, preferably Black-owned business, that your readers can go to. Alternatively, you can also link people to online sellers.
How to enter
Stories must make mention of a podcast, book, article, or other piece of media in order to be eligible. Stories that do not reference any type of media will not be eligible.
For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until June 18, 2020, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Lifelong Learnings Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://customer-opinion.top/vocal-plus%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/a%3E.%3C/p%3E%3Cp class="css-1923z11-Text">To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these 35 countries will not be eligible to win.
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Challenge resources
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 Team14 days ago in Resources
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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 Team19 days ago in Resources






