The Bloc is having a paying contest. The winner gets mucho dinero.
I like money very much.
We thought forever that money was an apocryphal substance, but have recently discovered that it actually exists, and that you can hold it in your hand. We would like to put some money in your hand, so you can verify its existence, too. Please read this entire page carefully before you submit. (Seriously, we’re serious.)
The Gist
Send us a story of 11–5,000 words that focuses on this theme: making a sacrifice. You can be tragic, you can be hilarious, you can be ironic, you can write this hanging upside down from a bar—it doesn’t matter how you approach the topic. It can be true, or it can be not true, or it can be partly true and partly not true, or it can pretend to be true without actually being true, or it can pretend to be fiction to hide the dubious actions of its author. We’re looking forward to the way you bend words around this topic.
The Prize
The author of the entry that we feel best tackles the above topic will get their palms greased with at least $250. We’re counting on 25 entries to make that happen, but for every entry over 25, we’re boosting the prize by $5. Obviously the winning story will also be published and we will brag about it everywhere. If we don’t get 25 entries, the contest will be cancelled and everyone will get their money back, and we will sit in a corner and cry.
Entry Fee
$10 will buy you a season pass to this contest. If your story is rejected (see “Response Time”), you can send another one, ad infinitum. Scroll down and click the PayPal button—we will not consider your submission until we receive the entry fee. If we don’t get 25 submissions, everyone gets all their money back.
Deadline
The contest is open until July 4, 2010, at 6:19 p.m. At 6:20 p.m. on this day it will close. We gave this thing a four-month gap so we can generate lots of dough, to give to you, of course.
Response Time
Our ingenious response plan is borrowed graciously from Nate over at Bartleby Snopes. Hell, most of this contest jargon came from there, too. Thanks, Nate! Anyway, we’re operating on a rolling rejection process. We will always keep our top four submissions in consideration, and will email you as soon as possible if we have to turn your submission down. (Remember, though, you can submit infinity submissions.) We’ll announce the winner with a trumpet flourish by July 31, 2010. Within a week of that announcement, we will send the winner at least $250. That’s 1/4000th of a million dollars!
Please do not report these responses to Duotrope. The Swift List keeps us alive, and this is not our regular 1–2 day rejection process. Reporting contest rejections to Duotrope could potentially kill Writers’ Bloc, which is too young to die.
I’m ready to submit!
Step 1: Have you read ALL the instructions carefully? Step 2: Click the button to pay your $10 entry fee. We will send you a personal confirmation to let you know that we are indeed watching over your $10 bill. Step 3: Send your submission to
. It’s quite important that your subject line contains the word “CONTEST,” or something to that effect, so we don’t think it’s a normal submission. Some brief guidelines:
1. DOC or RTF only—no DOCX, and don’t paste the story into your email.
2. No previous publications or simultaneous submissions.
3. Rights: You have the copyright to your own work. The Bloc claims First North American Serial and electronic rights, and the right to archive your work to infinity and beyond. If your work is reprinted, please cite Writers’ Bloc as the initial publisher.
But I just wanted to send you guys a regular submission, you know, for the regular issue.
Mosey on over here instead.