Writer's Digest Fun Prompt: Writing Contest

Every other month Writer's Digest sponsors a "short, open-ended prompt." Your job is to contemplate it for thirty seconds or so and scribble out a short story (750 words or less) based on the prompt. Submit.



Rules as I've scanned them:

• Winner will be published in the June 2009 issues of Writer's Digest.
• If you have lots of friends who will jump on & vote for you, you can win. That is, if your story is one of the top five the editors have selected to post on the website.
• Deadline is January 10, 2009

Prompt for Your Story #16: Three boys decide to go have some fun at the local swimming hole. Shortly after they arrive, something terrible happens.

—From The Writer's Book of Matches (Writer's Digest Books) by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts, a literary journal.

Report on Your Life: FieldReport

November 15 marks this season's submission deadline for FieldReport, a website dedicated to your creative nonfiction memoir pieces. All you have to do is sign up (free), review five other pieces, and then you're able to post your own 2000-word-or-less personal narrative.

Founded with the desire to deepen Internet communities, this website allows readers to review, comment on, or simply read others' true life experiences. To sweeten the experience, a monthly prize of $1000 is awarded to the greatest story in each of the twenty categories, which is determined by a blind review process.

A quarterly prize of $4000 is awarded to the highest ranking field report (excluding previous Silver winners), and a Grand Prize of $250,000 is awarded to the highest ranking silver or bronze winner on January 1st.

A $25,000 teen prize is also awarded to those entrants who are between the ages of 13-17.

The Positives: There is no sign up fee. You can have up to three writing "personas" that allow for anonymity, if you're worried about posting under your given name. You keep the copyright, allowing FieldReport a "limited license on the work."

The Drawbacks: It seems that once posted, your story is there for all time.

Have any of you actually posted your stories on FieldReport? I haven't, so I'm curious about your experiences if you have. Positive? Negative? Ambivalent?

Riding the Glimmertrain

If you're a writer, you've probably heard of Glimmertrain. But, like most writers, you're probably busy and have forgotten about the opportunities available there.

Check out their Writing Guidelines. Because they've worked hard to shorten up their response time, they have implemented a "theme" of the month. They have also decided to accept simultaneous submissions since "it is so darned difficult to get one's work published."

Glimmertrain's Short Story Writing Contest for New Writers will open November 1st, closing at midnight on the last day of the month. There is a $15 reading fee with first place receiving $1200 and 20 copies of the issue with the winning story.

If you submit a story during their "Standard" months, there is no reading fee. Payment is $700 for first publication and onetime anthology rights.

Order a copy today, familiarize yourself with the type of writing they print, and see if you're meant to submit your piece. Depending upon the month, they accept fiction all the way up to 20,000 words.

Writers of the Future: Free Writing Contest

One of the elite writing contests of the day happens to be sponsored by L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future. Many leading science fiction and fantasy authors have earned their first laurels -- and major recognition -- as semi-finalists, finalists, and winners of this contest. Big names in the field (like Orson Scott Card, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Anne McCaffrey to name a few) also make up the panel of judges.

Check out the contest rules, explore the site, and contemplate sending in your masterpiece.

Basics:

• No entry fee
• 17,000 words or less
• Four quarters per year, each with prizes
• First prize: $1000
• Grand prize: $5000 for the year's winner
• No professional writers (see site's definition)

Contest Deadlines:
December 31st
March 31st
June 30th
September 30th
Contest year ends at midnight on Sept 30th.

Note: for you budding artists out there, check out the Illustrators of the Future contest for new & amateur artists worldwide; $1500 in prizes awarded quarterly.