Winning Short Story Competitions: The Essential Writing Guide for the Serious Writer

Competition judges talk skills and resonance. Listing in competitions fast tracks you to publication. Like musicians and painters, writers are collectors. We gather high notes and low notes, and seek truant shades to make our palettes fresh again. What better place to test new sounds and colours but from within the cosmos of short stories? Short fiction is in demand. For emerging writers, it’s a swift path to publication—swifter than that first novel, for sure. Submission calls are global and a few publications will light up your portfolio. Collectively, over the years, L. E. Daniels and C. Sawyer have judged many short story competitions and seen patterns in what makes stories wobble, and what makes them dance. When you enter competitions you’re pitting yourself against a legion of other writers who are largely just as talented and passionate as yourself. Competitions are filled with good to great writers. In Winning Short Story Competitions, Daniels and Sawyer detail the difference between the winners and the well-populated layer of the field that score around the 8/10 mark for their work. Long- or Short-Listing, or better yet, Winning, competitions endorses that you have the skills and talent of a career writer. Nothing beats seeing your work published. Winning Short Story Competitions is for serious writers on the quest to expand their writing practise from good/very good, to exceptional. The skills in this book are translatable to all fiction writing.

L. E. Daniels directs the Brisbane Writers Workshop and is a qualified editor, author and mentor. She has a Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston USA, and a Bachelor of Arts, Creative Writing from Fairfield University USA. Daniels is sought after as a literary judge, since 2004. She has edited 90+ commercially published books and runs a series of writing workshops for fiction and non-fiction writers.

C. Sawyer directs Hawkeye Publishing and Hawkeye Books. She is a publisher, editor, author and presenter. She has a Master of Arts Writing through Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia. The former Newspaper Editor has a published portfolio spanning 30 years. She mentors writers on Show Not Tell, The Art of Self-Editing, and Winning Short Story Competitions. Sawyer is a literary judge for short story and book manuscript competitions.