Rituals of Affection Challenge Winners
A behind-the-scenes glimpse at the Vocal Curation Team’s top picks from Rituals of Affection.
Rituals of Affection asked writers to linger in repetition. To return, again and again, to a gesture of love and let us see what it holds beneath the surface.
The winning pieces understood that repetition sharpens feeling. A bed that recites old lovers. A solstice spell cast year after year. A marriage sustained through rehearsed disaster. In each, devotion and disturbance move side by side.
These stories let the ritual persist and show what it gives, and what it takes.
🏆 Winners
The Midsummer Ritual by Tim Carmichael
Tim Carmichael returns each Midsummer to the simple act of scattering hemp seed at the boundary, where a first love steps out of the trees to rake what should have stayed buried.
Gifting by Edward Swafford
Edward Swafford centers a secretive Tuesday-night ritual at a bathhouse, where Ryan seeks belonging through “gifting” and finds that the intimacy he craves carries a consequence that cannot be undone.
June, Mary. by Cali Loria
Cali Loria imagines a lover’s mattress that speaks, reciting a catalog of past bodies during each embrace and turning desire into a ritual that edges toward replacement.
Asklipiou Recipes by Scott Christenson🌴
Scott builds a marriage around biweekly mock murders, where fake blood and staged panic become a ritual that keeps love sharp and flirts with real fear.
The Missing Ingredient by Imola Tóth
Imola anchors the piece in Marie’s yearly return to the mushroom circle, where love fuels the offering and the forest listens, leaving the outcome suspended between hope and hunger.
🎖️ Runners-up
- What Remains by Paul Stewart
- When Love Feels Right, Why Worry Why? by Lightning Bolt ⚡
- The Proposal by Sam Spinelli
- Our Song by Dana Crandell
- Part of Me by Raistlin Allen
- Split Lip by Maegan Heil
- Just a Spoonful by Alyssa Musso
- He Loves Me by Aubrey Rebecca
- The Fall by Heather
- Take Care of Her For Me by Meredith Harmon
- The Valentine’s Feast by Bride of Sound
- Dream Journal by Ian Lund
- charlotte by Esmoore Shurpit
- Naps at E48 by GL
- Performative Ritual by Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA
🏅 Honorable Mentions
- Mera by D. J. Reddall
- Romantic Picnic For Two by A. J. Schoenfeld
- Any Minute Now by Shannon Hilson
- Tuesday at Six by Caitlin Charlton
- Toe Painting for a Donkey by Andrea Corwin
- New Day no. 5642 by Hannah Moore
- The Orchard Doctrine by Nikki Torino Wagner
- Eyes by Cadma
- Perfectly Preserved Envy. by Novel Allen
- The Piercer by Kera Hollow
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📢 Raise Your Voice Thread: 02/19/2026
Our “Raise Your Voice Threads” are hosted most alternating Thursdays 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 Vocal6 days ago in Resources
Veil of Subconscious Awakening
Images slide behind my eyelids like film cadres, bursting with meanings. In one moment, I’m speeding down the highway, making the speedometer swing wildly like a frantic pendulum. The next moment, I’m plunging from a falling plane, slowly crashing earthward. At home, I meet black cat’s green, googly eyes staring at me from the cavernous hollowness of the kitchen. When I turn for a moment, it disappears, and all I can see is a pair of blue suede shoes set up against the wall. I pick them up and put them on. When I glimpse at them again, they’ve become black as night, making me blink and flinch.
By Moon Desert3 days ago in Fiction
Comments (17)
Congrats one and all! 🎉🎉😁
Congratulations everyone! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Congrats everyone! After having submitted to so many challenges, so happy to have made the list this time! 🥳
Thank you, Vocal! Congrats to all the winners! 🎉
Congratulations everyone!
Great job everyone!
Thanks, @Vocal and congratulations, everyone!
Congratulations to the winners! Kudos for taking this one seriously (I kind of gave it the finger). Brave, honest work. Honored to see people who read my work on this board. If you need to lighten your emotional register (and see end rhyme from me), come to my limerick challenge if you like work with content warnings: https://shopping-review.top/writers/take-off-your-prose-t5210c099m%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/a%3E If you don’t like dirty stuff, it’s not your pint of Guinness.
Well done, folks!
Yay! Congratulations all! Woot Woot! 🥳
🎉🎉🎉💥💥🤗 Congratulations to all for the wins and the great stories.
Yayyy!! Congrats everyone!
Congratulations everyone. Looking forward to reading some of your entries.
Congratulations to all the winners! This was a tough challenge for me and to see you all do so well is inspiring!
Wow, I’m shocked. I never thought my taboo-laden piece would place at numero deux 🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤. Huge props to the Vocal judges for bringing my story (and a focus on HIV) to more readers 🙏.
Congratulations to this amazing group of fantastic writers!!! ❤ I feel sheepish even being listed among your number. I submitted my entry last minute, then discovered it has about 4 typos. I lost all faith in it at that point. It's very uplifting to me that, despite my mistakes, my story can be read and apparently still enjoyed (I hope) by ya'all. I'm honored. ⚡💙 Bill⚡
Congratulations 🎊