Before we start, I just want to say that StoryADay May is about creativity and output and getting-the-words-on-the-page. It’s not about judging or being judged. But then I threw a writing contest in to the mix too. Why?

To encourage everyone to go back into their new story pile and start to learn to revise and polish and take their writing seriously.

And lots of people did. From all the entries there can be only one winner, but I enjoyed reading every entry. I was proud of every one of you for writing it down and for taking the chance on showing your stories to someone else.

If you don’t see your name below, please don’t fret. (I promise you not one story I read in the entries made me think, “Ugh, this person should stop writing”.) Just keep writing and reading and telling your stories.

And check out the end of this post for a special offer of a free online workshop all about editing your stories.

Now, on to the main event.

Contest Results

Our judge elected not to award a second and third place prize, so we have a winner and a short-list of nine honourable mentions.

First Place:

What’s On The Inside by Kelly Buchholz

Our final judge Heidi W. Durrow said,

“It’s a disturbing, but well-realized story–the tone and structure and language all making it work! Congrats to the winner!”

Kelly will receive the first prize of $50, copies of The Novel and Short Story Writers Market (Writers Digest Books), The Breakout Novelist by Donald Maass and Rory’s Story Cubes (Gamewright Games).

In addition to the winner, we have nine Honorable Mentions. They are:

Connecting Flight by Alexis A. Hunter
Ninety Nine by Aaron Shively
The Reading by Monique Cuillerier
Drawing Faces by Neha Chaudhuri
Matchmaker by Almo Schumann
After Math by Bridget Sutton
An Unlikely Alliance by Danica West
Evaluation M-047 by Amanda Makepeace
Childhood’s End by Sam Webb

Each of these writers will receive a copy of the StoryADay journal – excellent for jotting down story ideas!

Thanks To Our Judges and Sponsors

Huge thanks go to our final judge, Heidi W. Durrow, whose first novel The Girl Who Fell From The Sky (Algonquin Books, 2010) won the Bellwether Prize and NYT Bestseller, and has just been picked by the city of Portland as its Everybody Reads title for 2012. You can listen to Heidi in conversation with Terry McMillan live online on August 18, and you can see Heidi at the Pen Center USA’s Dirty Laundry Lit event in LA on August 27th.

Huge thanks also our first-round judge Melanie Rigney. Melanie is the former managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine, a seasoned writing contest judge, frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, author and editor.

Thanks also to Gamewright Games for providing copies of Rory’s Story Cubes, an awesome creativity tool disguised as a cute dice game.

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A Special Offer For You

Editing your writing is hard, but it’s one of the things that makes the difference between a first draft and a published draft.

On Sept 9, come and learn about the different levels and stages of editing with StoryADay.org’s own Julie Duffy.

In this teleseminar you’ll learn about:

• Understanding the different levels of editing and how to use this knowledge to keep from being discouraged,
• How to figure out what you need right now,
• DIY editing,
• How to effectively get editing help from others.

You’ll also receive an exclusive money-saving offer on my upcoming series of writing seminars aimed specifically at short-story writers.

Sign up for the Creativity Lab to hear more about the free editing seminar.
(The Creativity Lab is different from the StoryADay Advance List, which is only about the challenge. The Creativity Lab is an infrequent newsletter, chock-full of tools and information to help you in your writing life).

Thanks!