Short Story Writing Contest June 2009
*See all of our writing contests
Purpose: Have fun, enjoy the competition, and become a better author by participating in the peer critique process portion of this contest.
Who Can Enter: This contest is open to all authors. All submissions must be posted and assigned critiques completed by June 27, 2009. Stories must be 10,000 words or fewer. You may post additional stories to this site for critique, but only one story will be eligible for the contest.
Subject Matter: You choose. The short story should adhere to our content policy.
Prizes: The winner of this contest will receive $50.
How to Enter: It’s pretty easy
- Create a free account or sign in for existing members.
- Upload your story; make sure you select “Short Story Writing Contest” as the category.
- Submit your work for peer critique.
- Complete your assigned reviews, this is discussed more below.
Decisions: There will be 2 rounds of judging.
- Authors from the Review Fuse staff will select the 3 best works for Round 2.
- Of these 3 works selected, Review Fuse management will select the winning authors based on who gave the most detailed and well thought out critiques to their peer’s.
Entry Fee: There are no entry fees or purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest. After you submit your work to the contest you will be required to complete assigned critiques of other authors (4 for free members and 3 for premium members). You will receive 3 critiques of your work in return. Those who do not complete their critiques will not be eligible to win the contest.
Rights: All stories remain the sole property of the author. After we have selected the winner we will seek permission from the author to publish the winning work on our blog. The author is under no obligation to allow this.
Notification: The prize winner will be notified by email on July 4, 2009. We will announce the prize winner on our blog on July 6, 2009.
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April 25th, 2009 at 9:43 am
[...] Contest Website http://www.reviewfuse.com/blog/2009/04/novelette-writing-contest-june-2009/ [...]
April 28th, 2009 at 7:16 am
I have a couple of questions. I just joined as a Free Member, but I would like more info before I start uploading.
1. Do you have any guidelines about how to write a critique? In particular, are there any rules about how long a critique should be? Obviously “Great” or “Awful!” are too short, and I would guess if the critique is longer than the story that might be a bit much
But some guidance might be nice.
2. Can we provide some guidance TO YOU about what stories would be reasonable for US to critique? I do Specfic (SF, fantasy, etc.) and would not feel comfortable trying to critique a romance or a western, nor would I be likely to provide much useful feedback to authors in those genres.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:42 am
@linuxjim
We have several posts on our blog about our review expectations, see links below. We largely leave it up the the reviewer to determine what constitutes a thorough review for each work they critique. The perceived quality of the critiques you give, based on the critique feedback scores you will receive, help us match authors for critique.
http://www.reviewfuse.com/blog/2009/01/charging-into-the-review/
http://www.reviewfuse.com/blog/2008/09/responding-to-a-bad-review/
http://www.reviewfuse.com/blog/2008/08/critiquing-you-are-the-expert-i-think/
http://www.reviewfuse.com/blog/2008/09/is-it-better-to-give-than-to-receive-a-review-2/
We currently only match authors based on they type of work they submit (short story, chapter, poem, essay, etc…). Our group is not large enough yet for finer segmentation yet. I believe that if you know what constitutes a good story in one genre you can easily transfer that knowledge to critiques of other genres. in about another 6 months we will probably start using your input when finding works for you to critique.
There is no one to opt out of an assigned critique. However, if you are patient, assigned critiques do disappear after 16 hours. We have set our system up like to ensure timely critiques for all members.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I have been trying to search the website to find out how many storys there are for this contest so far. I haven’t had any luck. I keep typing, “June,” or, “June short story,” and nothing helplful has come up. Could you just tell me how many entries you’ve had so far?
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
It is hard to say exactly how many entries there are, as not all the reviews have been completed yet. However, at least 60 people so far have started the process. Our entries usually go up a lot more as the deadline nears. This is our first short story contest, so we are not sure exactly how many entries to expect, but it will likely be in the 100s.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
do you have to live in america to enter this competition?
i live in the uk, so i was wondering if the prize money would be converted for someone who lives outside america.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
@Shannon
Anyone can enter the contest. For writers living outside of the United States we can send a $50 USD check but we recommend that winners outside of the USA accept an electronic Amazon.com gift card instead of the check. We convert the $50 USD into the equivalent currency for this transaction. The winner of our fist contest did not reside in the USA and he accepted an electronic Amazon Gift card.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Dear Editors,
Are short stories that have already been published on-line eligible for this contest?
Thanks very much.
Jenny
June 25th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
@jenny
We make a good faith effort to verify that the story that wins the contest is the original work of the person who submitted it. As long as the work belongs to the winner then anything is fair game, including previously published stories.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:56 am
I uploaded my story about threee weeks ago, and I know that the deadline is today. I know the winner will find out on the 4th of July, but I am just wondering when we will find out who has gotten to round 2, if we do find out?
June 27th, 2009 at 9:36 am
@Shannon
We typically email the first, second, and third place winners. We also announce the three winners in the blog post. So yes, the three who make it to round two will be notified.