Southeast Review’s contest deadline extended: World’s Best Short Short Story Contest, Poetry and Narrative Nonfiction
Southeast Review is a sweet magazine out of FSU that publishes lots of great, accessible poetry and prose. They run three contest (with one of the best contest names) The World’s Best Short Short Story Contest for stories under 500 words (as well as a poetry and narrative nonfiction contest). I entered last year, and like any rejected writer, I found fault in a few of the finalists published from last year’s issue, but the winner, and a number of the finalists were not only well written (all the stories, I can’t argue, were very well written) but also quirky and kinda up my alley so I can’t hold a grudge against them. One particular story made me question if Russell Edson had taken up a pseudonym. In other words, this is a safe journal to submit your work to. It’s not stuffily academic nor a breeding pool of nepotism. It’s a little Different. Here’s the info: First, don’t include your information on any of the pieces of writing. This is important. While ostensibly it shouldn’t matter much because all they have to do is white out the name, or sharpie it out or whatever, in the 1 in 300 chance that the contributor is local or friendly with a judge. But, as someone who’s dealt with (albeit only hundreds compared to the thousands of submissions the bigger journals get each year) reading submissions to a literary journal knows, it starts to get slightly offensive when people don’t read the 2 sentences of guidelines you make plainly available. Just a little. So, just be sure to include a cover letter that says “Hi, this is my name, this is what I’m submitting to your contest- ‘___’” and you’ll improve your standings just the teensiest bit (over f-ing up the rules, which may get you attention in high school, but later on people just start trashing submissions that LOOK like they’re a waste of time.
Deadline: March 20th
Fee: $15 ($10 for one narrative nonfiction essay)
Prize: $500 ($250 for nonfiction, so cry about it memoirists. :P)
Lengths:
WBSSSC: up to 3 stories per submission, each must be under 500 words
Poetry Contest: up to 5 poems or 10 pages.
(2nd ever) Narrative Nonfiction Contest: Up to 5,000 words.
Submit your shizz guys. You get a copy of the winning issue, and really, submitting to contests are the easiest way to justify buying an extraneous book in these tough times. Because, it’s not like buying a lottery ticket. It’s like buying a book and a raffle ticket. So get to it.