Keep storytelling Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Have you enjoyed contributing 100-word microstories to The Lost Book? Are you looking for another outlet for your creativity?

I met Ken MacLeod, acclaimed author and writer in residence at the Genomics Forum, last night (and embarrassed him by enthusing about how much I like his writing). That reminded me that I’ve been meaning to tell you all about his Human Genre Project and some other fiction/microfiction sites.

• The Human Genre Project is great – “a collection of new writing in very short forms — short stories, flash fictions, reflections, poems — inspired by genes and genomics.” Anyone can submit work, simply by emailing Ken MacLeod. It launched last month and there’s a good collection of interesting writing already on the site. Go and take a look!

• 100 Word Stories – weekly challenge based on a theme, where you can vote on the winner. The current topic is “Over the falls in a barrel”, with submissions due by August 21.

• 100 Words – join the community and challenge yourself to write 100 words a day for a month.

• Great Hites weekly story contest – write a short story (100-3000 words) based on a prompt (this week it’s “Pick up your local paper, choose an interesting news item. Tell us about it and then write a story based on that news item”, closing date 25 August) or vote on your favourite entry from the previous week. Lost Book writer Norvaljoe‘s work can often be found here.

• JBWB’s list of UK writing competitions.

• Surface Tension often blogs about, and links to, short writing challenges – as well as posting the author’s own microfiction and self-challenges.

Added 26 August 2009:

• Scottish Book Trust – creative writing opportunities for teens and young people.

• Frying an egg – 100 word story prompts.

• Leaf Books’ 2009 microfiction competition – max. 300 words, closing date 30 September (small entry fee).

If you’ve got any other links you’d like to tell us and everyone else about, leave us a comment.