Some of you who are reading this may have entered the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition in previous years, and some of you probably discovered our website and competition only recently. But we know one thing about you simply because you're reading this blog: at some point, you have felt a stirring need to write.
If you've answered that need by putting words on a page -- or, more likely, typing them onto your desktop or laptop -- we hope your writing is bringing you creative satisfaction. We also hope each exploration increases your knowledge of the magnetically appealing (and sometimes maddening) craft of writing.
No matter where you are on the journey toward discovering your unique creative voice, please consider this your invitation to submit your work to our 2008 competition.
You may have seen notices in literary publications about our 2007 winner. Bruce Overby, a part-time technical communications consultant and graduate student from Los Altos, California, earned the $1,000 first prize for "Bookmarks." Chosen from among 905 submissions, “Bookmarks" is about a well-educated alcoholic man whose love of poetry brings him solace and eventual redemption after his sister's death.
The story impressed Lorian and her judges for its subtle power, tightly controlled phrasing and flawless prose. When we last heard from him, Bruce was planning to include the piece in a collection he was submitting for his graduate thesis.
This past year, Lorian has spoken about the competition and the quality of its entrants’ work in numerous national and international print and television interviews. She continues to work on her new book and may even showcase a small portion of it during the July literary readings held in Key West to celebrate the short story awards.
For more information about the competition, we encourage you to explore this website. There you’ll find complete entry guidelines, answers to frequently-asked questions, and some top stories from previous years. We'll also be posting previous winners' stories in this blog, so keep checking back with us.
On another note, we contact our writers now and then with e-mail updates (but please note that we never, ever, EVER make our e-mail list available to anyone else). If you'd like to be added to our list, please e-mail shortstorykw@aol.com.
We hope to find a new piece from you among this year’s entries. Most of all, we hope you continue to find joy in developing your writing talent.
All the best,
Carol Shaughnessy and Joanne Denning
Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition Winners and Honorable Mentions
