Canadian writing contests: November through December

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

CBC Short Story Prize
Deadline:
November 1

Details:
original, unpublished work between 1200-1500 words
open to Canadian residents only
$25 per entry
$6,000 first prize

The Malahat Review Open Season Awards
Deadline:
November 1

Details:
one fiction entry of no more than 2,500 words; one poetry entry of up to three poems of no more than 100 lines per poem
$35 for first entry; $15 for subsequent entries
$3,000 first prize

PRISM International Creative Non-Fiction Contest
Deadline:
November 17

Details:
original, unpublished work of no more than 6,000 words
$35 for first entry; $5 for subsequent entries
$1,500 first prize

Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award, Short Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction Contests
sponsored by Prairie Fire Press and McNally Robinson Booksellers
Deadline:
November 30

Details:
one fiction entry of no more than 10,000 words; one poetry entry consisting of one, two, or three poems of no more than 150 lines; one creative non-fiction entry of no more than 5,000 words$32 per entry
$1,250 first prize

The Fiddlehead Annual Literary Contest
Deadline:
December 1

Details:
one fiction entry of no more than 6,000 words; one poetry entry of up to three poems of no more than 100 lines per poem
$30 per entry
$2,000 first prize

Red Tuque Books 2014 Short Story Writing Contest
2014 Canadian Tales Of The Mysterious Short Story Competition
Deadline:
December 31

Details:
work must be “identifiably Canadian” and have “an element of mystery”
original, unpublished work between 1500-5000 words
$15 for one manuscript; $25 for two; $30 for three
$500 first prize

Colour thesaurus

/ sarahelund / 2 Comments

Reading Ingrid’s Notes – a blog by a YA writer and illustrator Ingrid Sundberg – I came across a neato colour thesaurus that she created.

As she suggests, “Fill your stories with a rainbow of images!”

white

Tan

yellow

Orange

Red

pink

Purple

Blue

Green

brown

Grey

black

First draft complete

/ sarahelund / 2 Comments

Hello readers,

How’s this for some news? Not two minutes ago I officially completed a first draft of my novel. That’s right. You could come to my house, open up my laptop, and read all 221 pages of my genius right now. It’s even formatted.

Take that, world.

This calls for a dance party.

I’m so jealous of future people

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Have you heard about the Future Library (“Framtidsbiblioteket”) art project by Katie Paterson? Basically, one writer every year until 2114 will contribute a text to the Future Library, with the writings held unpublished until then.

A thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka, a forest just outside Oslo, which will supply the paper for the special anthology of books of the writings  to be printed in one hundred years time. As per the website: “Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the 100-year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.”

Margaret Atwood was asked to be the inaugural writer for Future Library which is fitting, I suppose, since her most popular works have been speculative fiction. I’m just jealous of the future humans who get to read her contribution.

I love this idea, though I would love it a lot more if someone would have started it, say, 50 years ago, so I could have a chance of reading the anthology.

Enthuse your muse with this writing prompt

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Let the following random sentence chosen from a book on my bookshelf inspire you. Don’t think; just write.

“The third language we speak in common is money, and it is because of that I am writing to you now.”
What’s Bred in the Bone, Robertson Davies