It’s Contest Season

I always enjoy entering writing contests. It’s fun to test myself and some contests give you story feedback from the judges, so I can make a story better to submit for publication.

I have several stories entered in contests right now, and I am excited about all of them.

A Hell of a Rescue was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Writing Contest last year in the Short Story category. It’s a flash fiction about Achilles’s trip to Lucifer’s Hell. I felt it deserved another shot at greatness, so I have entered it into the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition in the Genre Short Story category.

Finding Namaste is a longer story about a travel ICU nurse on vacation in the middle of the pandemic. She feels like she’s letting her patients down and she can’t relax. The story shows how she gets her joy and peace back. While it did not place well enough to make the second round in the NYC Midnight Short Story contest, I got valuable feedback that I was able to use. I have entered it in several other contests and I hope it does well. Those include: The PNWA Writing contest in the Short Story category (finalists announced in August, winners announced in September), the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition in the Mainstream/Literary category (finalists announced in August, winners announced in November), and the Ploughshares Emerging Writers contest (the winner will be published in the Winter 2023-24 issue of Ploughshares). Ploughshares is a long shot, but is prestigious, and you don’t win if you don’t submit, so it is worth a try.

I also submitted The Heart of Kublai Khan’s Menagerie Keeper to the Autocrit Short Story Contest. The theme is treasure hunting and this fits right in, since the premise is looking for gold in Australia. AutoCrit is an online writing tool that helps make improvements to their writing. I have found it helpful in my editing process.

The contests continue, and NYC Midnight is a mainstay for me. At the end of April – while I was at the Chanticleer Author’s Conference, I wrote a 100 word story for NYC Midnight. Results come back later this month, and assuming the story was successful, I would move on to the second round. Next week, the first round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction contest starts. I will have 48 hours to write and submit based on the prompt – assuming I get one I am willing to write. There are a few genres I don’t often choose to write in, including political satire, horror, and occasionally romance. Microfiction is usually an exception – even I can write a 100 word horror story without going against my grain.

What contests do you like to participate in?