Wordclay Short Story Contests Now Open: Submission Guidelines Posted
April 2, 2008
It’s my pleasure to announce the official open of both the Wordclay Single Short Story and the Short Story Collection contests. As of 11 a.m. today, April 2, 2008, you can send our readers your stories and cover letters for a chance to win cash, publishing packages as well as copies of the Wordclay Anthology Best Modern Voices, in which the 15 story finalists will appear in Volume 2.
And submitting doesn’t cost a dime either!
Now, your writing mission, should you choose to accept it, is to visit Wordclay’s Contest Connection, read over the submission guidelines, polish your best pieces and e-mail your entry to contests@wordclay.com.
Registration is not required, but I definitely recommend you join the Wordclay community. Maybe I’m just overly cautious by nature, but registration is free anyway; we never divulge any of your personal information; and we’ll have your contact information on file in case you win prizes or you’re chosen as a finalist.
Far be it for me to limit the creative process and frustrate writers, but there are a few practical limitations for acceptable submissions. No entry for the Single Short Story Contest can be more than 5,000 words, and you can only submit a maximum of three stories attached to a single e-mail. To avoid confusion, you cannot submit revisions at a later date either, so make sure you’re satisfied with your work before you click send.
As for the Short Story Collection Contest, we ask that you submit your potential book as a Microsoft Word document and indicate the three stories (no more than 15,000 words combined) that you would like our judges to review firsthand. Other stories from your collection can (and probably will) be selected at random for screening, so make sure all your stories meet our guidelines for publishable material as well as your own personal goals.
The deadline for qualifying submissions to both the story contests is May 31, 2008, by 11:59 p.m., and winners should be announced by the end of June.
For more details about prizes and submission guidelines, visit Wordclay’s Contest Connection, where you can read the winners of our previous poetry contest as well.
Your own blogger, Justin Dimos, will be coordinating this round of short story contests, so feel free to post your questions or concerns about the contests here, and I’ll get you answers lickity split (or at least within a few days).
This is Justin, blogcasting from Wordclay, signing off.
Entry Filed under: Announcements, Publishing, Writing. Tags: community, contest, contest connection, deadline, guidelines, poetry, prizes, publishing packages, registration, short story, submission, Wordclay.
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1.
Don | April 2, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Woo Hoo!!!
2.
jdimos | April 3, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Thanks for the enthusiasm, Don!
Good luck in the contest!
-Justin
3.
Mr Surbade | April 12, 2008 at 6:43 am
In my humble opinion you should be decorated.
4.
Jenny | April 15, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Interesting.
5.
Arnold | April 16, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Dugg for Arnold rocking the casket.
6.
the protagonize blog &raq&hellip | April 22, 2008 at 10:03 pm
[...] May 1st. We’ll see if we can work out some more contests throughout the year! Check out their blog for more [...]
7.
rich | April 26, 2008 at 11:48 am
that’s awesome
8.
Manuel | May 5, 2008 at 12:59 pm
wow!, very intersting!
9.
Wordclay - Short Story Co&hellip | May 5, 2008 at 3:41 pm
[...] Wordclay - Short Story Competition Posted in May 5th, 2008 by Mikeachim in Creative / Literary Where? Here. [...]
10.
Got Em | May 8, 2008 at 1:29 am
I hope no one wins. I hope everything enter is shit.
Just kidding. This is an awesome contest. I hope the excellent entries will be sold in stores.
11.
Alex Moisi | May 18, 2008 at 6:25 pm
My question is what about reprints? or multiple submissions?
Can I send a story that was already published and what if I want to submit a story that is in the slush pile of a publication?
12.
jdimos | May 19, 2008 at 9:05 am
Alex, unfortunately, we are not accepting stories that have already been published. It must be a previously unpublished story of which you are the author.
Also, bear in mind that you can submit up to three stories for the contest, per our guidelines. Check them out at the Wordclay Contest Connection via our homepage http://www.wordclay.com.
I’m not certain what you mean by “a story that is in the slush pile of a publishcation…” though. Usually, editors use slush piles to fill magazines when material is lacking for a given issue. Like I said before, however, you can submit any three stories (5000 words or less) that are previously unpublished.
Thanks for your interest, and I hope to see your submissions soon!
-Justin
13.
Alex Moisi | May 19, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I am sorry if I was unclear, what I meant was a simultaneous submission.
I have a story which I submitted to another market but have yet not heard back from them, can I still submit it to your contest?
Also thanks for the clarification
14.
jdimos | May 20, 2008 at 9:31 am
Alex,
I’m glad you asked about simultaneous submissions, and Wordclay is happy to accept them. Just let us know if your entry is published elsewhere, so we can withdraw the published story. But feel free to submit up to three stories that are simultaneous submissions - we’d be thrilled to read them!
Thanks again for the question.
-Justin
15.
Alex Moisi | May 21, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Great, thank you very much for the info, it has been really helpful
16.
Monday Market: 2008.06.23&hellip | June 23, 2008 at 6:00 am
[...] the official open of both the Wordclay Single Short Story and the Short Story Collection contests. As of 11 a.m. today, April 2, 2008, you can send our readers your stories and cover letters for a [...]
17.
Marco Kaufman | June 23, 2008 at 9:10 am
Are you accepting flash fiction pieces?
-MSK
18.
angiekp | June 23, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Sorry, but the Short Story Contest in now closed (the entry deadline was May 31). Winners will be announced June 30 and we plan to feature some of the winning work on http://www.wordclay.com if you’re interested. Or, if you want to get your flash fiction out there now, you can always use Wordclay’s free program to publish your collection.
19.
Marco Kaufman | June 23, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Actually, I was wondering whether you would be accepting flash pieces for the next issue…
-MSK
20.
jdimos | June 24, 2008 at 9:42 am
Marco,
The short answer is: we’re not sure… I suspect the next one will be a creative non-fiction contest, but we haven’t nailed anything down yet. We’re still waiting to flesh out the details of our budget. But I know that flash fiction interests us, and we would be fools not to have a short-short contest sometime in the future. My advice is to keep Wordclay in mind and just check our Contest Connection page periodically.
Hope that answered your question.
-Justin
21.
Monday Market: 2008.07.21&hellip | July 21, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[...] my pleasure to announce the official open of both the Wordclay Single Short Story and the Short Story Collection contests. As of 11 a.m. today, April 2, 2008, you can send our readers your stories and cover letters for a [...]
22.
Monday Market: 2008.08.18&hellip | August 18, 2008 at 2:19 pm
[...] Wordclay Short Story Contests Now Open: Submission Guidelines … [...]