Hey guys! I’m back with the black and white, bottom line details of how to submit your short story to my contest! I’m thinking this contest needs a name, especially if I continue to host other contests with the other pictures from Harris Burdick. Maybe by the time this post is finished, something will come to me.
Also, I’ve decided to keep this first contest FREE since I didn’t mention a $2 fee in my original post. But if I continue to host these little shindigs, I will institute a small fee in order to offer a bigger prize amount AND to give the runners up a little somethin’ somethin’ too š Maybe one day when I’m a best selling author with royalties swamping my offshore accounts, I’ll be able to fund a fabulous contest entirely on my own.
So…here’s all you need to know to enter (I hope! Feel free to ask me any questions that I may have forgotten to cover. This is new territory for me!). And–if you missed the announcement–I now have enough judges to open this contest up to 100 contestants! Thank you to those generous readers that have volunteered their time to judge.
- Stories must be double-spaced, written in a standard 12pt font. Please stick to clear, legible fonts. I’ll leave it to your discretion but don’t go crazy š
- Please number pages and include the title of your work and your name at the beginning of the story.
- Stories should be sent as a Word document attachment to your email. Send to heather@heatherllfitzgerald.com (don’t miss the 2 Ls in the middle!)
- Stories must relate back to the drawing presented in this blog post.
- Stories should be between 2,000ā10,000 words. I will allow 25 words over to account for differing computers and the title and author name.
- Keep it clean. āPGā
- Stories must use the quote that comes with the sketch somewhere in the story. It does not need to be verbatim but should be recognizable. You do not need to include the title of the sketch. (Both are listed below the picture).
- The deadline to enter is March 31st, 2018. Winner and two runners up will be contacted by email.
- I will announce the winner sometime in May, posting the top three stories in consecutive weeks, after a bit of editing (if I deem it necessary).
“He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late.”
On a personal note…when my writer friends submit a story to me (whether we are friends in person or cyberspace), I will pass their stories on to a judge that isn’t familiar with them, just to keep everything as fair as possible!
Have you gotten started on your story? I actually have a HARD time writing short stories. Keeping it to 2,000–10,000 words would be a very difficult challenge for my longwinded brain! It was all I could do to keep my story under 20,000 words for the Rooglewood contest :-/
Do you have a hard time keeping a story short and sweet?
Oh, yeah! A title to the contest…ugh! The pressure.
The Unofficial Short Stories of Harris Burdick Contest.
NO. Too long (told you I have an issue with words).
Maybe I’ll just number each contest. Or maybe someone out there has a better idea?
Nothing catchy and to the point is coming to mind…
Hi Heather,
As I look now at your comments I realized two things. First was that my original impression was wrong. It was not a photograph, but a very poor copy of the work. Second was just how long ago that those discussions took place. Somehow I have divided the works into haunting and surreal. The sketch you/we are using probably is a charcoal work. It is to me a haunting work, and it is my interpretation of what I think I see. I have completed a short story. The last time I did this I used a typewriter. All I need to do is to format it as you requested. Can you imagine a time just before the WWW that all we had were āword processorsā.
Damn, I really have gotten old.
Bob Neumann
Hi Bob! Youāre right, itās a photo of a sketch. Sorry if it was misleading in any way. I donāt know how to scan a book photo into my computer so I could do is take a picture of the picture!
Iām old enough to remember typewriters and word processors as well. My first book I tried to type on our type writer, but didnāt know about white-out and therefore couldnāt type a perfect page and gave up. Those were the good all days!
I mustāve admit, Iām thankful for computers and how easy they make my job as a writer. Hope you can get it all figured out on your word processor, and I look forward to reading the ideas this picture has inspired. It sounds like it left you with some wonderful impressions!
Harris Burdick, talk about what goes around. Has it really been so long? I remember the search for a man whose photography was as Vermeerās was to classical art. I was on the outside, way outside when a friend in the publishing world told of the Burdick Mystery. I got a look at his work and found myself totally absorbed in the profound depth within the simplicity I shared.
Even then I created stories in my mind at what Mr Burdick captured.
Yes Heather, I still remember some of those stories. Count me in for your contest.
How very cool! Funny how long his story has been around and yet so few know about it. Iāll look forward to reading your submission (feel free to submit more than one). Sounds like you have a head start, since youāve been thinking about the pictures for some time š