Wordstock Fiction Contest – Judged by Aimee Bender!

Cover via Amazon

Wordstock is pleased to announce the call for submissions for the 5th Wordstock Short Fiction Competition.
 
This national contest is a blind competition. The winner of the competition receives a first prize of $1,000 and publication in the October 2011 issue of Portland Monthly magazine. All 10 finalists’ stories will be published in the Wordstock Ten, an anthology that will be available at the festival, at Portland-area bookstores, and online through the Wordstock website. Every writer who enters the competition will receive a copy of the anthology.
 
The final judge for this year’s competition is novelist Aimee Bender.

Bender is the author of four books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998) which was a NY Times Notable Book, An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000) which was an L.A. Times pick of the year, Willful Creatures (2005) which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010) which recently won the SCIBA award for best fiction, and an Alex Award. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and many more places, as well as heard on PRI’s This American Life and Selected Shorts. Her fiction has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches creative writing at USC.
 
The fee to enter the contest is $20. This year, for the first time, submissions can only be made online. Any proceeds from the competition go to support Wordstock’s education programs for teachers and students. The deadline for entering the 2011 competition is July 15.

Complete submission guidelines are available at http://wordstockfestival.com/get-involved/short-fiction-competition

Looking for a new home for Writer’s Cramp

So I’ve been in PDX for three months now:
Job-check
Car-check
iPad-check
I’m totally equipped with all the things that would have made my class in Seattle so much easier, plus I have tons of ideas!!! All I need now is a place to hold my class. I’ve heard from a couple of potential students, and I thought I might have had a venue, but they are not calling me back.

I had a sweet deal with Fremont Abbey Arts Center…space in exchange for whatever donations my students brought in, and it’d be great to get something like that again. Also, I’d be willing to donate hours as a volunteer for whatever place will host me as I did at the Abbey.

Or, I’d be willing to rent a space outright if the price was right. I don’t want to ask a ton of money from my students. I’m not trying to make money, just provide a service and maybe get my gas paid for. This is for the joy of writing-I’m not out to pay my rent with this. But maybe I could help you pay yours?? (on your office, gallery, studio, community center, coffee shop, etc???)

A writing class might be a way to add a new dimension to whatever your organization has to offer. I’d be wiling to customize a class or two to your needs. Let’s talk. I got the ideas, all I need is the place to be once a week for a few hours to write with people and talk about writing.

So, Portland artists, writers, organizers, can you help me out??? I can’t wait to get Writer’s Cramp going again.