July 2025 Winners and August Writing Prompts

Congratulations to Kathryn Gillis and Lilinoe Stupplebeen.  You have each won 10 Bamboo Bucks to send in the BRP online store.  Send a message to

[email protected]

and they’ll send you a code you can use when you check out.

Now, here are rules and regs for August.

Go to a room in your home.  The living room, the kitchen, the bathroom — any room.  Once you’re in the room, I want you to think about situations you remember happening in that room.

Choose one of those scenes and then write a piece about it that is exactly 100 words, 200 words, or 300 words.  This can be a poem, a story, a conversation, an essay, or any hybrid form you come up with.

If the scene you recall morphs into a piece having little or nothing to do with what happened in that room, that’s okay.  Use the scene to take your writing anywhere it may go.

Remember, when you go for an exact word count, it’s best to overwrite and then edit down.  If you undershoot and then have to add on, it’s usually a harder way to go, and that may be noticeable to the reader.

As always, you can post a piece in any language you choose.  You need not provide a translation, but if you do, you may reach a wider audience.

Remember, exactly 100 words, 200 words, or 300 words.

All right, folks, 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.