Last week, Creative Loafing published the winning stories from its fiction contest. I’d encourage you to go read them. The three winners did an excellent job, and I can definitely learn from what they did with the theme, which was “Space.” Each had a different approach, but I think they were all effective.
Of course, I was hoping I might be included in the issue. I submitted my own story to the contest back in November. Now, I wasn’t expecting in the slightest to win. I mean, that was the first piece of fiction I’d written in about 17 years, so it would have been a pretty big shock to win a damn thing for it. And, honestly, I don’t think winning one of these sorts of contests is even a coherent goal. All you know is, there are three judges who you don’t know, and you don’t know what their criteria are. All you can do is meet the guidelines, submit on time, and see what happens. [Read more…] about Stories about Stories — Even Losing Ones