| The
TenTen Fiction Competition
ANNOUNCING
WordSmitten's
ANNUAL
LITERARY FICTION COMPETITION
A Short Story in exactly 1,010 words
Award-Winning
Short Stories
We are pleased to announce WordSmitten's
awards for our annual fiction competitions. Congratulations
to these storytellers and our thanks to all writers
who participated in this event. As always, these are
difficult decisions. Each writer's story has merit,
but a story that meets certain criteria always stands
apart. The award-winning stories are published and we
congratulate both winners.
WordSmitten's Storycove Flash Fiction Prize
of $150.00 for best short fiction is awarded
to Christina Fifield
of Lindenhurst, New York, for her whimsical story Sunday
Drives Done Mojo Style.
WordSmitten's TenTen Short Story Prize of $1,010.00
is awarded to
Andrew Davis for his story, Same
Thing, Only Different.
A few months ago, we announced a story that had been published
in an online publication owned and administered by Yale
University. We appreciate all our alert readers for reporting
it to our fiction panel. It is our policy to award this
scholarship to writers for original, unpublished
fiction that has not been recognized, published, or awarded
any previous prize. We disqualified the Yale student and
she returned the scholarship funds. In December, after a
complete review of all stories, we awarded those funds to
Andrew Davis.
WordSmitten's
Fiction Judge for this year's competition is renowned
author and educator Janet Burroway.
Janet Burroway's engaging and insightful textbook Writing
Fiction continues to guide writers to
higher levels of literary practice.
Next
year's deadline is July 1.
what's
the rule for the TenTen?
The Rule: Write a short story that requires exactly 1,010
words (excludes the title and footnotes). That's it. That's
the rule. Excise those adverbs and cut those adjectives. Make
us laugh or make us weep. Above all, pay rigorous attention
to the word count. It's why we call this unique short story
contest The TenTen. It's a challenge to be precise,
be witty, be short.
We
want to thank everyone for the notes, letters, and phone calls
requesting that we start up the TenTen again after our sabbatical.
We
heard you. Even better, we think you are right. So, sharpen
your pencils and rev up your laptops for the TenTen 2008.
Congratulations
to a previous winner of the $1,010.00 Fiction Prize: Maria
Dahvana Headley. Her recent novel, The Year
of Yes, rocked the house when broadcasting's Katie Couric
interviewed her last year.
For
current events on wordsmitten.com, you'll have a great time
tapping the lantern
at the top of WordSmitten's site pages. Visit often.
WordSmitten
Media's recent fiction judges include:
Janet
Burroway, author of the revered textbook, Writing
Fiction, and a renowned educator at Florida State University,
now FSU's noted Professor Emerita.
Noy
Holland, author of The Spectacle of the Body,
educator, and head of the UMass creative writing program,
helped us to select Maria Headley's story that evolved into
the bestseller and
a favorite novel for Katie Couric, MD Headley's The Year
of Yes.
Peter Meinke, educator,
poet, and author of The
Piano Tuner
(Winner
of the Flannery
O' Connor Award in Short Fiction).
Thisbe Nissen, author
of The Good People of New York & Osprey Island.
Michael C. White,
professor of creative writing and author of The Garden
of Martyrs, A Dream of Wolves, and other notable
works of fiction.
Deadline:
July 1
CALL
FOR FICTION
WordSmitten, an international digital media company provides
interviews, reviews, and news of interest to the publishing
and writing communities. We invite all writers of literary
fiction (and as much as we like a good romance and
thriller to read, no other genre, sorry) to enter this annual
competition.
The annual 1010 Fiction Award provides
a grant in the amount of $1010.00 to be awarded annually in
late autumn.
READ
OUR PREVIOUS WINNING STORIES:
CANNING DAY
by Mary McNulty
Fiction Judge: Peter Meinke (THE PIANO TUNER)
AND THIS ONE
IS JUST RIGHT by Maria D. Headley
Fiction Judge: Noy Holland (THE SPECTACLE OF THE BODY)
Okay, there are more rules.
Requirements: Fiction previously unpublished,
submitted through on-line procedures only, with a specific word
count of exactly 1,010 words. No attachments.
All
rights revert upon e-publication on our site, www.wordsmitten.com
and winner will be notified by mail and/or by e-mail.
If we are unable to reach the selected winner we will choose
a runner up if we do not have current contact information on
file. To register, read the guidelines and include a reading
fee of $15.00. No multiple submissions. Literary fiction only.
Guidelines:
We only accept submissions of on-line manuscripts
until the deadline of July 1, 2008 and anything
beyond that date will not be acknowledged or accepted. Participants
must be 18 years on or before July 1, 2008.
Author's
name should not appear on the manuscript under the title. The
top of the e-mail should contain the title only.
Provide
name, address, telephone number, and title at the bottom
of the e-mail; PLACE this info at least five spaces past the
end of the story.
IMPORTANT:
In your e-mail's Subject Line,
include the words TenTen Fiction.
Ready
to submit your TenTen Short Story to WordSmitten's
2008 competition? First, send your submission to story wordsmitten.com
and include the Subject Header: TenTen Fiction. Then click on
the PayPal logo at the bottom of this paragraph.
If you are not familiar with PayPal (a company owned by eBay
and listed on the stock exchange) and prefer snail mail, then
write to us for permission to mail your application.
To submit your story electronically, follow the PayPal instructions
to process your reading fee of $15.00. Include your name, address,
email, phone number, and your story title with your PayPal
application. Use our registered e-mail address (award wordsmitten.com)
to complete your registration on PayPal.
To
register now, click here:


We write with the
porch light on, expecting at any moment
that either truth or irony will appear on the doorstep.
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2008 WordSmitten Media, Inc. and wordsmitten.com All Rights Reserved.
WordSmitten Media.
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