This page provides essential information on the $5,550 short story, essay and prose contest only.
For details of our annual poetry contests as well, please click http://writenews.exactpages.com
Recommended Handbooks:
Our number one recommended little handbook is "7 Solid Roads to Writing Success". This book will cost you all of 99 cents at Amazon Kindle; but periodically, Amazon also holds FREE Days in which "7 Solid Roads to Writing Success" can be obtained ENTIRELY FREE OF CHARGE. The next FREE DAYS are JUNE 2 and JUNE 3.
Our number two selection and one of the Chief Judge's newest essential writing guides, is "How NOT To Write Short Stories: Seven Errors To Avoid". The next FREE GIVEAWAYS of this book at Amazon will be on MAY 12 and MAY 13. Normal price at Amazon Kindle is 99 cents.
Yet another useful little e-book, normally priced at 99 cents, is "How Writers Win Favor with Judges and Editors". This will be FREE at Amazon Kindle on MAY 5 and MAY 6. Normal price: 99 cents.
Our final e-booklet, "Correct Writing Formats for Contests and Publishers", also normally priced at 99 cents, will be available free of charge on MAY 18, MAY 19 and MAY 20.
To obtain your books, please click the Amazon links above.
You can also buy WRITE WAYS TO WIN WRITING CONTESTS from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores. Amazon have now published a Kindle edition which sells for only $2.99. Please click Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS
The 20th annual John Howard Reid & Tom Howard Short Story, Essay and Prose Contest has now closed. The 21st Contest will open on July 15!
$5,550
total prize pool!
Second
Prize: $1,000
Third
Prize: $400. Fourth prize: $250
Plus at least six High Distinction Awards of $150 each.
The next contest will close on March 31, 2013.
It's a smart idea to take a look at entries that have won major prizes in previous years. The bookstore edition of "Watching Time" was out of print for over a year. One store actually sold a copy for $145.00! Yet Amazon are still selling the book for only $12.95. Alas, it will NEVER be available at Kindle or NOOK in an e-book edition, as we do not have electronic rights.
You need a good title for your story, a title that is attractive, that stands out and that gives all the right read me signals. Some titles hold little or no appeal to potential readers, and some are total turn-offs. Until now, choosing the right title has been a hit-or-miss affair for everyone except movie studios. Any publicist for a movie studio can tell you straight away whether a title will attract people, leave them indifferent, or actually turn them away. In this book, you'll quickly identify not only the words that audiences have found so attractive that Hollywood has used them over and over, but the words that antagonized people to such an extent that the few movies that used this word were withdrawn and re-titled. Some of these words that will also repel book buyers and readers will surprise you. The Kindle edition is at present available for only 99 cents. Please click the Amazon link that has no price information.
Your
story or prose piece should be no longer than 5,000 words. There is no minimum
length. Closing date is March 31, 2013. You can send as many entries as you
like. You can also enter stories, essays, one-act plays or articles that have already been
published or even won prizes in other contests (so long as you hold the online publication rights). Unpublished stories are certainly
most welcome too!
All
ten winning stories/essays will be published on the WINNING WRITERS web site.
You retain all rights. For instance, you are free to submit your work to other
Contests and are free to accept or decline any offers of print publication.
ENTRY FEE: $15 per story/essay.
Maximum
length: 5,000 words.
No
minimum length requirements. No restrictions on the type or theme of the
stories or prose pieces you may submit. Send as many entries as you like!
Entries
must be postmarked on or before March 31, 2013, or lodged online before
midnight, March 31, 2013, Pacific Time.
Online submission using your credit card or PayPal will be available at Winning Writers as from July 15. Please use this link: http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/tomstory/ts_guidelines.php
Please send postal submissions to Winning Writers, Attention Tom Howard Short Story Contest, 351 Pleasant Street, PMB 222, Northampton, MA 01060-3961, USA. Make all checks, etc., payable to Winning Writers.
Chief judge: John Howard Reid. Associate judge: Dee C. Konrad.
We very much regret we cannot return entries. Please make sure you keep a copy. Also we cannot retrieve an entry to make alterations. However, you can always submit a revised version of your entry by paying another entry fee.
Results for the Tom Howard Short Story, Prose & Essay Contest 2011
$3,000 FIRST PRIZE: Judith Koenig for Bailey Is In Heaven
$1,000 SECOND PRIZE: Robert B. Robeson for Remembering August 20, 1969 on Memorial Day
$400 THIRD PRIZE: Lucille Bellucci for Cicadas
$250 FOURTH PRIZE: Ina L. Jones for One Man's Legacy
SIX MOST HIGHLY COMMENDED AWARDS of $150 each (random order): Elizabeth Davies for Back Story; William "Bing" Bingham for Sea of Dreams; Carla Zwahlen for Silent Night, Judy Willman for The Remembering Dreams; Cyndee Hollamon-Cook for Elizabeth; Mark Carlson for In Defense of the Book.
VERY HIGHLY COMMENDED (random order): Nicki de Hoog for Norma's Fire; Jenny Matlock for Lap for Rent; Elizabeth Davies for Wanderings; Tom Alberti for Stranger in the Snow; Marie Delgado Travis for Guerilla Warfare in the Bronx; Raf Leon Dahlquist for Norma Does It; Betty Jo Goddard for Schism.