Bridge House Short Story Competition 2010

World Stopping Events

Closing Date: Midnight NOVEMBER 30^th 2010

           

Have you ever thought about the big events that stopped the world and you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing?

I had the same thought and wrote a short story that I am now adapting into a novel called While No-one Was Watching. This is the story of a little girl that went missing at the exact same moment JFK was shot. So then I got to thinking about other events, the World Trade Center, the London bombing, Diana’s death, the Tsunami, Elvis’s death, the outbreak of war, the atom bombs, assassinations of world leaders….?

Can you write a short story up to 5000 words telling another story about something that happened at the same time as one of these world stopping events? The event has to be real-not fictitious and it has to be something that was big enough to shock the world (not small events, they have to be ones that we will all remember and relate to) but what you choose is up to you and it doesn’t matter if we have more than one story about the same event.

The main thing is that the world event has to be the back-drop of the story and have some relevance to the story but the story has to be about what happened to someone else when the eyes of the world were turned away.

This competition will make you think out of the box and the best 15 stories will be published in a special Competition Anthology in November 2011 on the anniversary of the JFK assassination

There will also be additional prizes for first and second prize stories.

·        1^st  Six month one-to-one mentoring (by email) with a published writer, also editor and Creative Writing Lecturer to help you work on a novel or short stories- constructive feedback and advice to help you shape your work and hopefully lead you to further success

·        2^nd Written critiques of ten short stories or a novel

The cost to enter is £5 but £1 from very single entry will be donated to this year's chosen charity The Born Free Foundation.

Use the Paypal button to pay for your entry

• Your submission should be sent as a Word document attachment to: admin@bridgehousepublishing.co.uk

• The email should have the title: Short Story Competition 2010 World Stopping Event
  
• Include in the body of your email your Paypal reference from your receipt
• In the body of the email also tell us a bit about yourself. This is just so that we get to know you and will not be used for anything. No more than 200 words, please.  

• The story should use standard format: double-spaced, indent paragraphs, justified left, ragged right.
• House-style: double curly quotes for direct speech, italics for thoughts
• Please use a header and footer on your document. In the header, please put your name as you would like it to appear should you be a winner, and the full title of the story, the page number and the number of pages. Use the “view” function on Word. e.g.

             While No-one was watching              2 of 17                                                     Debz Hobbs-Wyatt

• In the footer, please put your full contact details:
  

Debz Hobbs-Wyatt , 123 Book Street, Somewhere  0123 456 789 dhw@bestinternet.com    

• Please name your document with the title of the story and your surname. You may shorten this if you wish; e.g.

 Curious Incident Haddon.doc

• At the end of the submission please give us a bio of 50-70 words as you would like it to appear in the book if you win.  Do include your web site address. You may if you wish also include a dedication. You can if you wish reuse some of the introduction in your email

We will acknowledge receipt of all entries within 3 days- if you do not hear from us (unless you are notified otherwise by an out of office reply) then we advise you to drop us a line to check we have received it.