I’m Hosting a Short Story Contest!

Does the prospect of a writing contest get your creative juices flowing or turn your mouth as dry as an August day in Texas? Either way, I hope you’ll stick around long enough to consider entering my little version of a short story contest!

I recently entered Rooglewood Press’s fairytale retelling contest for their Snow White novella collection. There’s something about the dangling carrot offered by a contest that I can’t resist. I’m not the least bit athletic, but I am—I’ve come to realize—competitive. Something about the challenge of writing a story that *might* stand out in the crowd makes me hit the virtual gym and start training for the big day—er—deadline. My experience in the OCW Cascade Awards last summer only made contests more enticing!

The Flaming Sword won!

One of my day jobs is as a creative writing teacher at a fine arts school. This semester, I’m having my students write a short story based on the intriguing and mysterious drawings of one Harris Burdick. Have you ever heard of this talented and elusive man? I first encountered his work at our local library. I was mesmerized by his creative genius and the sentence or two that accompanied each piece of artwork.

Sometime in the 1950s, Mr. Harris Burdick showed fourteen of his enchanting drawings to a publisher by the name of Peter Wenders. Each sketch included a title and a line of text from a story.

Mr. Wenders loved the artwork and asked to see the stories. Harris promised to return the following day with the rest of his work, but…

BUT!

HE WAS NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN!

I know…Crazy 🙂

Email from prospective publisher: Dear Heather, 

Based on the first five chapters of your story, we want to publish your book right away! You are a brilliant genius and your book will be made into movies and toys and T-shirts. Computer geeks will design computer games based on your books. Please send your full manuscript ASAP!

Me: Sweet! I’m on my phone reading this email but I’ll send it to you as soon as I get back to my computer. 

And then…meh. I remove myself from social media, change my name, and move to Siberia.

NOT! I mean, why? Why did this happen? HOW could this happen? The publisher tried for years to locate Mr. Burdick but to no avail. He kept the pictures, thankfully, and his children came up with their own stories for the drawings. Many years later, Chris Van Allsburg would see Peter’s collection of drawings and help to get the pictures into a book, certain that such exposure would help draw out more info on Harris Burdick’s whereabouts. Read this account from Mr. Van Allsburg to see how that venture turned out! 

Now, there’s a website with the photos and a gallery of stories by others whose imagination has been captured by this mysterious man’s artwork. The students in my creative writing class are coming up with stories based on these pictures and I thought it might be fun to host a little writing contest of my own.

Of course, I cannot offer to publish stories in a book or shower the winners with large cash prizes. But I CAN give away an Amazon gift card ($25) and offer to publish the winner and two runner’s up on my blog. It’ll still be fun, right? If this trial run goes well, I may continue to do it with each of the photos from Henry Burdick’s collection. For the first round, I’m going to limit it to the first  25 entries 100 entries so I don’t get overwhelmed with stories to read (I’m going to have my class’s projects to read soon, as well). However, if I have some readers that would like to help judge (and, obviously, not enter as a writer), I can increase the number accepted. Comment below if you’d like to be a judge!

UPDATE 2/20/18 *I have JUDGES!!! Thanks to some generous readers, I now have opened the contest up to 100 contestants! *lights fireworks!* *Pops champagne cork!*

Guidelines:

  1. Stories must relate back to the drawing presented in this blog post.
  2. Stories should be between 2,000—10,000 words.
  3. Keep it clean. “PG”
  4. 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).
  5. The deadline to enter is March 31st, 2018. Winner and two runners up will be contacted by email. 
  6. 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).
  7. Stay tuned for the official submission guidelines post!
  8. *UPDATE* Click here to connect to the all the submission guidelines.

Without further adieu, here’s the inaugural picture for my first ever short story contest 🙂  

Mr. Linden’s Library
“He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late.”

What do you think? Enchanting, isn’t it? This one is my fave and seemed like a good place to start! Let your imagination run wild and submit your story to me at: heather@heatherllfitzgerald.com (don’t miss the 2 Ls in the middle of my first and last name!).

If you know of prolific readers that would enjoy the opportunity to judge, send them my way! This contest can get a little bigger if I have a little help 🙂

Let me know how you feel about contests in general, and this one in particular. I love to hear from you!

38 comments on “I’m Hosting a Short Story Contest!” Add yours →

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  1. Hmm, let’s try this again.:) I typed up a comment the other day, but it did not post, for some reason. Oregon is beautiful, I love it there. That’s so awesome that your books are set there! :)) Although I grew up in Moses Lake, I was actually born in Spokane (it’s like my home away from home, you know?) About five years ago, my wife and I moved to Auburn (to be closer to her family,) but we moved to Tacoma last fall.

    Small world, right!?

    1. Hey Dustin! Small world indeed 😊. I did get your original comment so I apologize if something weird happened (& I responded to it as well). Are you a member of Oregon Christian Writers? I realize you’re not in Oregon anymore,, but I’ma member and I live in Texas LOL. I will be at the conference this year!

  2. Heather, this is exciting! The story surrounding Harris Burdick has intrigued (and to some degree haunted me,) for years, and so almost feels kismet, you know? I actually own a beautiful hardcover copy of the collected art and accompanying stories. It is one of most prized possessions.

    I’m considering this! Thank you for the opportunity.

    1. Yay! I’m happy to have another person who’s familiar with this! I have that beautiful book as well. I was excited to find all of the pictures in one place. Sounds like he may have been thinking about some stories to go along with them for a while! Gives you a head start LOL. Hope you will get to enter!

      1. It truly is fascinating and mysterious, isn’t it? And possibly disturbing! I’ve always suspected that foul play was involved, to some extent or another. But maybe we’ll never know what actually happened..

        Agreed, it’s really convenient to have them all gathered in such a pristine collection. I could literally gaze at the artwork alone for hours. I’m very seriously considering it. I really want to participate, actually.:) I’m just trying to come up with an idea, one that’s more unique than the one that immediately came to mind upon seeing the drawing, because it’s cliche. But maybe I can do something along those lines that’s rather unique.

          1. Cool. I did not know that was an option.

            I have an idea that should work, both on a cathartic and literary level. I feel that, if not for you and this contest, I wouldn’t have ever had this idea, and found the courage to move on from something that happened almost seven years ago. Thank you. This means a lot to me.

          2. Wow! If this contest can offer some healing then praise God! Writing is truly therapeutic and I hope you’ll experience it as such! My son is autistic and so I wrote my trilogy with an autistic character, giving him a story that—as a parent—I wish my son could experience in real life. It was a gift to him and certainly a way to work through things myself. Blessings as you explore the possibilities!

          3. Agreed, writing is very cathartic. At least, I’ve always found it as such. Thank you, and praise God! My son is also autistic, and I’ve actually thought about writing a story (or maybe some poetry,) through the POV of an autistic child, exploring how they see the world. I feel blessed to be on the receiving end of the inspiration and encouragement that you’ve shown me. I cannot wait to get started on this contest!

          5. Oh, wow, small world! Oregon is beautiful! I grew up in Moses Lake, but my wife and moved to Auburn just under five years ago, and we moved to Tacoma last August!

          6. Aw, man! Please give the NW a big hug and tell it I miss it! (And I’ll be back this summer!). I don’t suppose you are part of Oregon Christian Writers? I’ll be at their conference.

      2. Thank you, Heather. I think that everyone with the talent and gift to write are blessed. And I love meeting and getting to know fellow creatives! ((((Hugs)))))

    2. That sure was weird, especially since you responded to my other comment, and now neither are to be seen. Anyway, I’m glad we straightened that up.:)

      I wasn’t aware of an Oregon Christian Writers organization. Is there one for each state, or just OR? There’s a conference?

      1. I would imagine there’s something in WA. Haven’t actually checked. I had two books final in their Cascade Awards last year so I came up for the ceremony (very last minute decision to come & was surprised by a win, so I was glad I did!). Jeff Gerke, Frank Peretti, James Rubart were all part of the conference. I decided to go this year for the entirety since one of my daughters now lives in Vancouver. You should at least look it up for future reference! It’ll be my first full conference and I’m excited! Also entered another book so we’ll see how that goes…😉

        1. I’d imagine there’s something similar here, too. Definitely worth looking into, like you said. 🙂 Wow, that’s great. Congratulations!!!! Did you get to meet Frank and everyone?

          1. Oh, definitely there’s something to be found in the great state of WA! Yes, I sure did get to meet Frank Peretti 🙂 This Present Darkness was my first Christian spec-fic book and I was hooked (waaaay back in the 80s!). Here’s my blog post about it if you’re curious: https://wp.me/p6VMdk-xS

    3. Yes, there’s plenty that Washington has to offer, and, in my opinion, it’s a great state. Though in all fairness, I am biased, as I’ve never lived anywhere else. Wow, what an honor it must have been to meet Frank, the grandfather, as it were, of Christian speculative fiction. Admittedly, I’m not really a fan of his work, but simply being in his presence and knowing how much he’s done for the genre, would be a life-changing experience, you know? Thank you for the blog, I’ll certainly check it out.

      1. Yes, that’s a good way to put it (maybe The Godfather??? LOL). I do wish I could’ve been there for his classes but thankful I was able to meet him at least.

          2. My apologies for not getting anything written. I feel bad, like I disappointed you. Most of all, I disappointed myself. I’m still very interested in writing the story for myself, however, if only for its cathartic purposes.

          3. Oh no, please don’t be so hard on yourself! I fail with my writing goals all the time because…life! That’s just reality. I’ll be hosting another contest in a couple of months so stay tuned for further opportunities 🙂

          4. Well, you hit the nail on the head there, my friend! I tend to be far too serious and hard on myself! Awesome! I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for that. Will that be on your Facebook page?

  3. I am intrigued by Harris Burdick’s story, and I am brainstorming already. Beautiful photos. If it seems it will not work to wrote a story, I will let you know if I can judge!

  4. I’ve never heard of Harris Burdick but his story is fascinating. I’ll have to think about the contest. I don’t think I can enter at this time but you can add me to the list of potential judges, if you like.

  5. Ooh!! This is exciting! And what an intriguing photo…my brain is already churning with possibilities. 😉 Maybe, if I can find the time, I’ll give it a shot. I’ve never done contests before, but have been interested in trying lately. 🙂

  6. Hi, Heather!
    I love entering contests, but I don’t think I’ll be able to enter yours this time. However, I’m happy to help you judge… Especially if you give me a list of guidelines on what makes a good winner.
    ~Esther Snider (you have my contact info through Facebook)