Fairytale Findings

Saturday, March 31st, was a big day!

Not only was it the deadline for my short story contest, here on this blog *woot-woot*, but it was also a big Facebook announcement party for a collection of Snow White fairytale retellings, which I mentioned here last week.

You may remember that I had entered the Rooglewood Snow White contest with a mash-up story of Snow White and Queen Esther. The amazing Anne Elisabeth Stengl, author of some incredible Christian fantasies, was our hostess for the party (not to mention the powerhouse behind Rooglewood and a gracious, interactive administrator of the Rooglewood FB page).

After the initial round of introductions from over 200 people, the announcements commenced. It began with twenty honorable mentions, moved to the twenty finalists, stopped to recognize the four contestants who earned a perfect score (aka “special unicorns”), and finished with the five stories selected from the finalists for the collection (not necessarily those that received perfect scores, just to clarify).

The announcements were made in clusters of four, with a quote from the judge included. I was thrilled to see several cyber friends make it into the honorable mentions and finalist groups! One finalist was my dear writing friend and former writer’s group buddy Abby Jones! Her imagination is almost uncontainable and I was not surprised to see her story, The Fighting Sullivans, make it into the finals. Way to go Abby <3 

Amazingly and thankfully, my novella For Such a Time as This also made it as a finalist! There was serious competition and I don’t take it lightly that I made it that far. I’m a particularly competitive individual (mostly against myself) and so it was great to reach this goal that I had set for my writing.

Unfortunately, my novella was not one of the five selected for the anthology. But– holy guacamole!–the stories that made it sound incredible, and I can’t wait to get my own copy of the book when it releases in December. I’ll be sure and share about it here because you won’t want to miss it!

Today I received an email with the judges comments and score sheet, along with a very enthusiastic note from Anne Elisabeth Stengl. She encouraged me to consider self-publishing For Such a Time as This and maybe create other books around its unique setting. Though I appreciated her generous comments, I explained that I had already planned to let my supporters get the story for free 🙂

Yes, that’s you, my friends!

I’m going to take the judge’s critiques and polish my story a little more (incidentally, my story scored 56/60 so THAT was exciting). Now that I can toss out the 20,000 word limit from the contest, I’ll be able to smooth out those little spots that bothered me (and the judge!). It’s tough for me to get all the elements into a story and keep it under 20,000 words. Not sure what that says about me except that maybe I am loooong winded 😀

If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, I hope you will consider doing so. That’s how I will share For Such a Time as This with my readers. I hope to get it spiffed up in the next month or two. At the moment, I have all the fun short stories sent in by YOU GUYS to read through, as well as correcting short stories from my creative writing class. I hope you’re anticipating the winners of the Harris Burdick contest which will be announced in May!

So . . . what is YOUR favorite fairytale? Is there one you’d like to see rewritten? I would love to hear your ideas!

18 comments on “Fairytale Findings” Add yours →

Comments are closed. You can not add new comments.

  1. 56/60?? That incredible, Heather! I loved For Such a Time as This so, so much (I may have squealed when it came up in the finalists!), and I’m really glad to see that it did so well <3.

    1. Thank you, that means a lot! You need to find a way to use your gift of camaraderie and encouragement, my dear. Your wonderful and thought provoking questions really kept us in creative fellowship. AND you’re a gifted writer on top of all that! So blessed to have met you!

  2. I have issues with Rooglewoods rights terms but congratulations on being a finalist. I saw the announcement and agreed with the mention about your descriptive language. There were many times in The Tethered World series when I wanted to highlight lines that I loved. So I’m looking forward to reading For Such a Time as This!

    Someday I plan to tackle a rewrite of Beauty and the Beast, giving it a “You’ve Got Mail” spin where she knows him in both forms and is torn between them, not knowing they are the same person. I feel like it’s often difficult to accept the prince when we only know him as the Beast throughout the story so it’d be nice to have the reader rooting for her to figure it out and break the curse.

    I also want to write an urban fantasy retelling of the original “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” containing the curse elements left out of most retellings (except the 1990 animation, The Nutcracker Prince).

    1. OH MY GOODNESS! Sarah, YOU MUST WRITE THESE BRILLIANT STORIES TODAY!!! I must read them tomorrow 😇. Superb B&B idea! Have you seen the movie trailer for the new Nutcracker movie??? Oh my word, it looks incredible! Thanks so much for your encouragement and support for my writing! Hugs from Texas.

      1. I have seen the trailer. It looks really neat but also gave me strong Alice in Wonderland vibes which I wondered if they meant to do that. I kept looking for the nutcracker to appear and then I realized I think *she* might be it which is a fascinating twist! I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

          1. lol. I just figured maybe you’d tried to say Sparks and autocorrect had changed it. No worries. 😀

  3. Awww! You’re too sweet. I’m honored and privileged to share this experience and the finalist standing with you! Love you and can’t wait to read your story. Girl, you were so close to a perfect unicorn! So close!

  5. Congratulations!!!! I am so excited for you!!!! A finalist!!!!! Squeal!!!!! I cannot wait to read it. Another Heather world to fall in love with! 😘

  6. *Applauds* Congrats on receiving such a good score!! And thank you in advance for sharing the story with us! I can hardly wait to read it <3
    And I confess I am very excited to hear the results of your story contest in May too! 🙂

  7. Sounds like an interesting story! I love fairytale retellings, especially Snow White for some reason. Fairest by Gail Carson Levine has to be my favorite traditionally published one, but I’ve read a ton indie retellings that rocked my world.

    Glad I am signed up for your newsletter, I can’t wait to read it! 🙂

    1. I’ve seen Fairest and wanted to read it. Sounds like a good recommendation! Thanks for signing up for my newsletter, I can’t wait to share my story!