Hello, everyone! Thank you for participating in this year's Writer's Jam :) This was our largest one by almost double the amount in people who followed all the way through to submitting during the event weekend! Not only was this our largest year quantity-wise, but it was definitely our most rich one quality-wise! Thank you to everyone who put in so much time and effort into your pieces, it means a lot to be able to host something that people find enjoyment and purpose in. If you would like to read every piece submitted this year, please check out the Discord linked to my account and navigate to the #writers-jam-2025 channel at the bottom of the server for a repository of links!

Just like last year, this post will be a collection of honorable mentions in addition to the top three pieces! I highly encourage you to check out every story linked here, as they are all of such quality that they were considered for the top three. It was an impossible task to be completely satisfied with only having three winners, moreso than any other year. Several runner-ups were of almost equal quality to the three pieces I chose as winners, and I had to get incredibly nitpicky to make these choices. Please enjoy their pieces with the same excitement you enjoy the winner's pieces! With all my yapping aside, please continue reading to see our winners and their excellent submissions:

WINNERS

First Place: @Intrapath - Broadcast Well

This piece absolutely kills it with the prose! It's super expressive without being pretentious and has some of the most realistic dialogue I've read between characters. The atmosphere is palpable and the descriptions are visceral, but it's never overdone. Great work using each word allowed through this competition's limits to your advantage!

Second Place: @pocketdial911 - Help Desk

On the completely opposite end of the vibe spectrum from first place, this futuristic and corporate story also does a great job personifying the characters and making their feelings and relationships feel real! Despite how different this story and first place are, they both are excellent at lingering when they need to and progressing the story naturally without anything feeling too jarring or too slow. This piece is also unique in how its cyclical nature is moreso implied, avoiding the pitfall of dumping exposition about cycles in an unnecessary way. Excellent formatting, great use of voice between each character, and overall very strong piece without relying on guttural emotion! Nice job!

Third Place: @polyanthus - A Year Ago

This one really hurts to read, but in a very impressive way. Sometimes, it can be difficult to restrain a story to just one focus, and it was super refreshing to see so many pieces that were confident in fleshing out just one aspect of their story this time around! Great work done here to keep the story contained to its own little thing and doing it so well.

Winners, please DM me your PayPal link on Discord so that your prize money can be sent! If you do not have PayPal, no alternatives can be guaranteed, as stated on the announcement post prior to the event taking place.

I said this earlier in this post, too, but several of the posts below absolutely could have been winners too in another universe! This was a very close competition, and even restraining myself, I still had to put quite a few pieces down here, just to make sure they all got the attention they deserved. Check out these runner-up pieces!

@f4t4lfrankie - There is a Girl Here

@marek1shtar - The Power to Break

@durinde - Mind Gardner

@whimsical-wife - Why I Hate Bugs

@PurpleZaPlant - The Eye

@TheLesserGod - Captain

@FluxyShark - Blue Parade

@trolord - Princess Wanamingo

@DannyGoodShirt - Goodbye, Everything

@taiomah - A Sunny Day in Fox Falls

@Slick-Silver - Ace in the Hole

@AhWham - Have your Cake and Pretend to Eat it too

@esayitch - The Chateau over The River Bode

@Ferstofus - Tears of a Portrait

@Isvus - A tape found at the dead end of Industrial Way, McCloud, CA

Please note that the runner-up pieces are not ordered in any particular way! They are all very excellent and well-worth a read :)

One last thank you to all those who participated, and a special thank you to our sponsors for helping increase the prize pool! I'll be back next year with more prompts for the Writer's Jam. Stay tuned between then for more competitions and collabs that are lined up and ready to go! <3