NEO•GRIOT

The 2011 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize
with guest judge Jennifer Egan

The winning submission, selected by Jennifer Egan, will be read as part of the Selected Shorts performance at Symphony Space on June 8, 2011. The story will be recorded for possible later broadcast as part of the public radio series. The winner will receive $1000.

Story requirements

• Submit a single short story that addresses the theme, Restaurants and Bars.
• Your story must have a title.
• Make sure your name and contact information appear on the first page of your story. If you are submitting online, this information needs to appear on the first page of the attached Word document. Include page numbers.
• Your story must be no more than 2 double-spaced typed pages in length (Times New Roman, 12pt font) and no more than 750 words.
• Your story must be unpublished.

Deadline
All submissions must be received by March 1, 2011. To be specific, online submissions must be submitted by 5pm Eastern Standard Time. Mailed submissions must arrive with the day's mail. (Entries postmarked on March 2 will NOT be accepted.)

Where to submit your story
Submit your submission online

Mail to
CONTEST, Selected Shorts
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway
New York, NY 10025.

Mailed submissions must also include a check for $25, written to Symphony Space.  Online submissions must give credit card information to submit.  Stories will not be accepted without payment of the $25 fee.

Please do not send duplicate copies (online or snail-mail is sufficient). We cannot allow revisions to your story once we have received it. Due to the high volume of submissions and the small size of our office, we will not be able to notify you when we receive your story. The winner will be selected by Jennifer Egan and notified by early May. As soon as the winner is selected, his or her name will be posted to this page.

Note
Contestants who submit online or provide their email address will be added to the Selected Shorts email list - please let us know if you do not wish to receive email about upcoming programs.

The Prize
$1000 and two tickets to the June 8^th Selected Shorts at Symphony Space, when the prizewinning story will be read.

About this year's guest judge
Jennifer Egan is the author of The Invisible Circus, Look at Me, a finalist for the National Book Award, and the bestselling The Keep, as well as a short story collection, Emerald City. She has published short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's and Ploughshares, among others, and her journalism appears frequently in the New York Times Magazine. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was recently a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.  She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and sons. Her new book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, was published in June and her short story Safari was selected by Richard Russo for Best American Short Stories 2010, to be published in October.

 

Calling on African Writers of Short Fiction

Sacramento-based Stories on Stage will feature stories by African writers on June 24, 2011 at the Sacramento Poetry Center. Valerie Fioravanti, founder and coordinator of the reading series, has asked me to recommend African writers who are interested in submitting their stories for this special feature. I think it is a great opportunity to create more awareness of African fiction and for Northern California readers to discover the diversity of African writing. The stories are read or performed by professional actors. 

Here is what Valerie is looking for:

"Two stories will be featured at each event, one from a writer with a short story collection or equivalent publication history, and one from an emerging writer. An emerging writer need not have previous publications in order to be selected. To submit a story for possible inclusion in the series, email your story as an attachment (.doc or .rtf only), and include a brief bio and publication history, if applicable. Please submit only one story, between 1000-4000 words. I am looking for stories that work well when read aloud, and not all short stories make a smooth transition off the page (this is true of some of my best stories. If you've never read your work aloud, I recommend a test run before you submit). Short stories only, please. No novel excerpts, essays/memoir, short plays/scripts, or monologues will be considered..." Email stories to valfiora[AT]yahoo.com and cc manu@munyori.com 

The Sacramento Poetry Center is based in Mid-town Sacramento. It presents poetry readings every Monday and short story readings every last Friday of the month. The Stories on Stage has been running for a year and it has helped bring high-quality fiction writers and performers to the SPC. 

Valerie Fioravanti says: 

"I write fiction, essays, and prose poems. Stories from my linked collection, Garbage Night at the Opera, have appeared in North American Review, Cimarron Review, Hunger Mountain, Night Train and others. These stories have received four pushcart prize nominations and Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXVIII. I received a Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing to work on a novel set in Italy, Bel Casino, which is one of two novels currently in the works. My essays and prose poems have been published in Eclectica, Silk Road, Puerto del Sol, International Living, and others. I live in Boulevard Park in midtown Sacramento, where I run the Stories on Stage reading series and Midtown Writing Workshops." 

Visit Stories on Stage for more details on the series.