Here’s a contest to focus your attention for the next couple of months – can you get something ready to enter?

Entries are invited for the The Malahat Review‘s 2011 Open Season Awards. Prize: $1000 in each of the three categories: poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction. Deadline: November 1, 2010. Entry fee: $35 (includes subscription). Open to international writers.

The Broken City, a Web-based literature/arts magazine, is accepting submissions for its winter 2010 edition: Found! Seeks scans/pictures/reports of literal finds as well as poetry, fiction, non-fiction, comics, art and photography dealing with issues of discovery. Deadline: November 15, 2010. More

Great Prizes – No Entry Fee

Gotham Writers’ Workshop invites you to enter their Hint Fiction 25-Word Story Writing Contest. Entry is free and easy.

For this competition, Gotham welcomes the expertise of Robert Swartwood, editor of Hint Fiction: An  Anthology of Stories of 25 Words or Fewer (to be published in November by W.W. Norton). Mr. Swartwood will select the winner from the finalists in this competition.

What is Hint Fiction? Here’s Swartwood’s definition:

Hint Fiction (n): a story of 25 words or fewer that suggests a larger, more complex story.

GREAT PRIZES
Submit your unpublished 25-word story to their competition and you could win:

• 10-week writing workshop ($420 value)
• $100 USD
• One-year subscription to The Writer
• Publication of your winning entry in Gotham’s Winter 2011 course catalog
• Bragging rights

ENTRY IS FREE & EASY
To enter, just complete their online entry form. Limit one entry per person.

Here’s a little more about Hint Fiction from Gotham’s site:

A title is important in Hint Fiction. While the word limit of a story is 25 words, it does not include the title. The title should add another layer of complexity to the story, helping to give the reader a better idea of what is taking place.

Ultimately, Hint Fiction is an exercise in brevity, with the writer trying to affect the reader in as few words as possible.

Here are two examples authored by Mr. Swartwood:

　10 Items or LessShe saw his picture in the paper and remembered waiting on him two days before: the lighter fluid, her quip about barbequing, his vacuous gaze.