Top shelf challenge entries in a library of: Liminal spaces
I gave the prompt and you absolutely flew. Here are highlights from last week's three-minute writing challenge.
Well, that all kicked off didn’t it? I can’t believe I dithered for half a second about starting a three-minute writing challenge. For the past week, some truly wonderful writing has found it’s way to me; on the bus, in the middle of the night, waiting for me in the queue at the post office. I hope you found some gems too. Alas, I should have been working on my own fiction this past week, but my word, it was a welcome distraction.
*IMPORTANT - this post is too long for a single email, so if you’re reading this in your inbox and it cuts off, jump over to the Substack site or read on the app for the best experience.
There have been so many wonderful entries for the first challenge. We’ve had prose, stream-of-consciousness (eat your heart out, Henry James), poetry, philosophy, journalling, and even some self-help advice.
A handful of you contacted me to let me know that this prompt led to a longer piece, or made you dwell on a moment that you’d previously thought insignificant. That’s the aim here—we want to pause, to reflect, to capture the flotsam of our thoughts before they drift away.
I have read every single entry and I applaud each and every one!
The next challenge will be announced this time next week (Wednesday).
The idea of a liminal space can be everything, nothing, and the bits in between. For a prompt that could lead in so many directions, some beautiful themes emerged, such as past selves that live within the parameters of our present, the concept of change, flux, nature revealing humanity, lunations, and time.
The best part, however, is less to do with the answers to the prompt, but more the questions that it raised, as seen in an exchange between
and that would have would have Aristotle nodding his head in sage approval from on high.I’ve curated a top shelf for your reading pleasure. These are all pieces that scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. If you’d like to indulge yourself fully, have a look at the re-stacks on the original challenge post. Now, onto the winning entry!
The Winner -
‘A girl I used to be called her first blog “between things”. It fit. She’d grown up in the stolen moments between cross-country moves, unearthing fragments of herself in the small seasons when she got to stand still. Her values snared in the thorny boughs between the beliefs she was handed and the fragile shoots of what she imagined. She clung to childhood and reached for freedom, stretched between two imperfect states, fell between the cracks of needing a challenge and being one. One day, she would fall in love on an island between where she was born and where she’d end up. Lately, she thinks about what she is, what she isn’t, and how the truth is something in between. She didn’t know the blog would die but the words would stick around, swimming between my ears most days: here I am, between things again.’
I chose ’s entry because of the beautiful way the challenge prompt has been taken and used to stitch together seemingly incongruous fragments of a past life. It’s a celebration of liminal spaces that can feel uncomfortable or unsettling at the time, because they all lead to the now of things.
My favourite line: she ‘fell between the cracks of needing a challenge and being one’ - gorgeous!
Here’s Chelsey’s original note, so please throw love in it’s direction.
Chelsey writes The Shuffle, a muse-letter at the intersection of creative magic and mess. As a practiced tarot-reader, you’ll also find instalments on how myth, astrology, and astrological modalities can help unblock creatives and illuminate our practices. Truly, after subscribing myself, I’m yet to find a post I don’t love.
The Top Shelf
Imagine these entries sitting on a table inside the entrance to your favourite book shop. You know, just beyond the heater, under a spotlight, with a staff recommendation under each one.
There were so many that could have filled these spaces, but each took the prompt somewhere unique and there’s a beauty in discovering contrast from the same starting point. Give them a read, give the writers some love, and use this as a great excuse to go get a cup of tea and linger in the moment. Trust me, you’ll want to.
1.
‘Somewhere between the rattlesnake bite and the soft crawling caress of the caterpillar on a forearm lies the absolute certainty that nature never intended us to lie to ourselves about its beauty nor its danger, both of which call out in forgiving voices that we view each rock as if it were a temple and each puddle of rain as if it satisfied all the world’s thirst.’
Oh, I really loved the immensity of this piece, which is admirable given its brevity. I feel its the literary equivalent of going out at midnight to get milk from the corner shop and the street lights going off to reveal the whole milky way.
For more like this, head to Victor’s Substack:
2.
‘The push/ pull of the tide.
Thrashing in my sleep and breathless in anticipation.
And then without warning like a lightening bolt forcing its way through the midnight sky.
Cracked open to help us all see.
She’s up and out and smiling behind the softly moving whispering cloud.
My whole body falls away from my heart and we dance.
I loose the night.
Welcome the day.
Until next month…
I’ll be counting the days.
Moonbeam, my only love’
The reluctantly welcomed sense of capturing a moment in time is what struck me about this piece. Being dragged from sleep is something I’m all too familiar with, but rounding off it’s sharp edges with the gift of a full moon is special indeed.
I’m sure you know Claire, but in case you’re living under a Substack rock, here she is:
3.
‘They buried her beneath the tide line.
They hoped that the sea would hold her back, keep her from rising up. Every time I walk these sands, when the tide has retreated, I wonder where she lies. I imagine the ocean rushing back in to cover us both. And I hope that she waited until low tide, perhaps under a blazing full moon, to pull her bones from the sticky, wet sand and marched back up the beach to burn them all to the ground.’
We have another nod to the moon here. Little did I know that I’d posted this challenge on a full moon day, and is there any other group of people more in tune with that than writers? Allegra’s piece is all about push / pull and nods to a great and terrible power. I loved it.
More from Allegra here:
4.
It’s in the wait
That sacred pause
The liminal space
It opens doors
Portals even
To other realms
Expansive spaces
Not previously felt
I get lost there
While finding me
A chance to dance
In purely being
I used to fear
These gaps in time
But now I know
They are gifts of mine
To access worlds
Previously unseen
To take me on a journey
I’ve never been
It’s in the wait
The sacred pause
The liminal space
That I am held.
It’s so strange that I never considered that poetry would come from this prompt, perhaps because I’m so often grappling with long-form writing. Poetry is a wonderful reset and I admire those that can write it with such seeming ease, especially in three-minutes! Lauren has done just that, with portals and pauses and moments of time held like precious gifts.
A treasure trove of Lauren’s writing can be found here:
The Next Three-Minute Writing Challenge
The next challenge will go live on Wednesday December 12th. Until then, I will leave you with a quote from one of my writing heroes, Annie Dillard:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
If you’d like to read more from me, you can find my writing by picking up my novels, either from any decent bookshop or through your local library (never feel bad about this - I actually make more money from a library loan than a Kindle purchase). The Lonely Fajita (2021), The Sister Surprise (2022), or The Wedding Crasher (2023). My books have sold nearly 20,000 copies and I am so grateful that people like my dark lil’ sense of humour and fish-out-of-water heroines.
Reviews of my work:
'‘I relished this witty, tender story of loneliness, growth and friendship. Mann has a fabulous knack of finding the funny in life’s small detail’ - Pernille Hughes
‘Heartwarming, charming and witty’ - Sophie Cousens #1 bestselling author of This Time Next Year
‘The perfect blend of warm and witty you can't help but smile (and laugh) throughout’ - Helly Acton, author of The Shelf
‘Had me laughing all the way through, and I got weepy at the end’ - Sara Nisha Adams, author of The Reading List
‘I laughed the whole way through and cried at the end. The perfect smart, escapist read’ - Freya Sampson, author of The Last Chance Library
‘As comforting as putting on your cosiest sweater and fuzzy socks. I loved every moment of it’ - Jesse Sutanto, author of Dial A For Aunties
‘Yet another hilarious and touching book from Abigail Mann, with a cast of great and terrible characters and a setting full of Succession-esque glamour and drama’ - Lex Croucher, author of Gwen and Art are Not in Love
‘Abigail Mann is at her absolute best . . . she skillfully uses comedy alongside other more serious topics’ - Holly McCulloch, author of The Mix Up
These are all so GORGEOUS ✨ such magic has been created!
I thought the closing date was tomorrow for entries? After ideas ticking over in my mind for days, I was planning on letting the words flow this evening x
What an honour! Love your introduction, and the whole curation of this challenge ✨