May 2025 Bamboo Shoots Writing Contest Prompts and April Winner : )

Aloha and a very Happy June to you all.  Congratulations to Sickwitch.  You’re the April winner of the Bamboo Shoots Writing Contest.  You have won those much-coveted 10 Bamboo Bucks you can spend in the online Bamboo Ridge Press Bookstore.  Send a message to

[email protected]

and they will send you a code that you can use when you checkout of the store.

Now, for May, let’s go back to an old Jim Harstad favorite: a piece of exactly 100 words.  That’s right.  Not 99 words, not 101 words but the just-right 100 words.  As always, you may ignore the prompts offered here; write anything you wish.  Just make sure your word count is exactly 100 on the nose.

So, here are the prompts for May:

Fairytales
Wretch
Things Happened
Silver Chain
In the Fields
Famous
Joy
Shut Down
Fortune Teller
Daybreak
Passing
Between
Divinity
In the Chapel
South Shore
North Shore
West Side
Rainbow
Backstreets
Donors
Artists
Start Writing

Okay, writers, 100 words exactly.  Don’t think about the demise of 99 Marketplace.  Forget about your fondness for 101 Dalmatians and how you despise fur coats. That is unless you’re going to write about these things in exactly 100 words.  So, let’s . . . start writing.

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.