Category Archives: Writing

I’m wondering if I can find time in the next 48 hours to write a 4,000 word short story. Writers’ Digest is hosting six genre competitions—science fiction, thriller, young adult, romance, crime, horror—and pushed the deadline for the first three until October 1. I’m guessing that the extended deadlines mean that they either have not received very many submissions, or that they just haven’t received any good submissions. It’s only $20 to enter, a maximum of 4,000 words and needs to fit into one of those genres. It’s going to be a pretty crazy 48 hours as it is: I’m wrapping up my last days with TQ, have some freelance work to finish up and need to get ready to head to the tropics on Saturday, so why not throw in a short story on top of it all? The prize for each genre winner is $1,000—click here for information and other competitions, including the short short story competition with a maximum 1,500 word count. Good luck!

I just found out that my story, The Fourth Friend, is going to be published by Bona Fide Books in a book called Tahoe Blues in December! The book is a collection of 500-word or less stories—fiction, nonfiction and essays—that all include Lake Tahoe. The Fourth Friend is a fictional piece about a couple vacationing at a lakeside inn, who are trying to save a dying relationship (again, fictional!). It was remarkably difficult to write a story in just 500 words. I found myself spending hours analyzing every description, interaction and piece of dialogue to determine what was truly necessary to include. Anyway, I now know what all of my relatives are receiving for Christmas!