Deadline
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Categories
Entry Fees
$25 (including processing fees); each additional submission (on the same transaction, up to 5 per transaction) will be $15.
Prizes
$1,000 and publication in the March 2016 issue will be awarded to the winner. The runner-up will receive $500 and publication on writermag.com. Third place winner will receive $250 and publication on writermag.com.
Description
Have YOUR story read by novelist Colum McCann in The Writer‘s new short story contest,“Two Roads Diverge.”
“There is always room for at least two truths.”
―TransAtlantic
“With all respects to heaven, I like it here.”
― Let the Great World Spin
Write a 2,000-word short story responding to one or both quotes by novelist and short story writer Colum McCann (and perhaps keep in mind Robert Frost’s poem “A Road Not Taken”). What elements of duality and divergence can you include: duplicitous acts, binary oppositions, communication with the “other side,” double indemnity, twins? Let your imagination riff on taking a plot, character, setting or theme in two directions.
Novelist and short story writer Colum McCann will read the finalists and choose the winners.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION is December 6.
Submit via online submission platform only. Click here to submit starting October 6.
For inspiration, check out these short stories, which feature themes of duality:
“A Death” by Stephen King
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
“A Dead Woman’s Secret” by Guy de Maupassant
“Sisters” (excerpt) by Colum McCann
Guidelines:
- The submission deadline is midnight eastern time on December 6, 2015.
- The entry fee is $25 (including processing fees).
- We encourage you to submit more than one story at once – for a discounted entry fee of $15. All entries must be submitted on the same transaction in order to get the discounted rate. The first submission will be $25 and each additional submission (up to 5 per transaction) will be $15.
- $1,000 and publication in the March 2016 issue will be awarded to the winner. The runner-up will receive $500 and publication on writermag.com. Third place winner will receive $250 and publication on writermag.com.
- A blind reading of all entries will be conducted by a staff editor of The Writer, who will narrow down the pool of finalists. Those entries will then be read by Colum McCann, who will select a winner.
- Close friends and colleagues (current & former) of the The Writer staff and Madavor Media are not eligible to compete.
- All submissions must be submitted via our online submission form manager. We will not accept mail or email submissions. We do not accept previously published entries.
- All submissions must be previously unpublished.
- You may enter simultaneously submitted work.
- Winners will be announced in the March 2016 issue of The Writer.
- Please remove your name, bio and any contact info from the file that you submit.
- Entry fees are non-refundable.
- Must be 18 years or older to enter.