March 2025 Bamboo Shoots Writing Contest Winners & April 2025 prompts

Happy April to all of you, I hope your writing goes as well as it does for Lilinoe Stupplebeen, Codfishcamp, and Maliakw.  You three are the March winners of 10 Bamboo Bucks.  Now you have to figure out who gets the 3.37 Bucks.

Nah, just April-fooling you.  You each get 10 whole Bucks to spend in the Bamboo Ridge Press store.  Send a message to

[email protected]

and they’ll send you a code you can use when you check out of the store.  Happy spending.  Get something nice for a friend.

Now, here, appearing below, are the writing prompts for April.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a piece between 100 and 1000 words either using those prompts to inspire you, or ignoring them completely.  Go ahead and write about anything you choose.  Feel free to write in any language you prefer, and there is no need for a translation.  If you do provide a translation, however, you may reach more readers.

Okay, here are the prompts to ignore for April:

A family scene that did not exist
It was hard for them to accept this
Alone and together
Your tongue tastes bitter
In the months before I was born
He bit his lip so hard that he tasted blood
Who knew how long it had been going on
I paid for everyone
With a secret name
I can smell the mountains coming to me
We all said what a shame
Everyone was surprised and disappointed
At these times the only thing that matters is the present

Okay, writers, let’s write!

By participating in the Bamboo Shoots community, you agree to the following rules:

1. We reserve the right to remove content that promotes hate or gratuitous violence. Be respectful and courteous to others.
2. All contest challenge entries must be submitted by the designated
3. Enter as many times as you like using a trigger/prompt (this page).
4. Contest Challenge entries can be prose (including short stories, nonfiction essays, or whatever you write), poetry, or plays -- or any type of hybrid writing you dream up.
5. Every entry must have a title -- unless you choose to enter a haiku, in which case you can simply enter the word haiku in the title section.
6. All content/entries should be original work. You retain ownership of your entries; however, we may ask to use them elsewhere on the site or on social media to help promote Bamboo Ridge and/or the Bamboo Shoots online writing community.
7. Winners will be announced with all possible speed after the end of each month. Winners receive 10 Bamboo Bucks credit to spend in the BRP online bookstore. Bamboo Bucks have no monetary value outside of the online store.
8. Entries may also be selected for publication in the regular Bamboo Ridge Journal. If your piece is chosen, the editors will contact you via the email address on file.
9. Please note that you need not enter the contest challenge in order to post on Bamboo Shoots. You may post other writing if you choose. We welcome that here:  Click this link to go to Shoot da Breeze.