Sheila, your comments and suggestions greatly improved my work. I appreciate the way this competition was structured. —Rhonda Wiley-Jones Thank you so very much for your SUPER fast and thoughtful reply. I`ve been stuck with this piece for almost two years and any revising was to no avail. The ending did not seem right, as…
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Our Writing Current Contest
Does the World Inspire You?
Summer Contest Reading Period May 30 to July 30, 2012
“A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes.” — William Sansom
Do you have an essay or poems inspired by your observations of the world around you? It could be a scene or event in nature or even the world outside your window. Perhaps we can challenge you to write one especially for this contest.
Like some of our past contests, this one includes the opportunity for revision because Sheila believes in second chances. She will read and respond to your essays of up to six pages (1500 words) or three poems submitted online or through the mail along with a reading fee of $15. Entrants may revise and resubmit their work for final judging by a guest judge (to be announced) at no extra cost. Our contest deadlines offer you an incentive for creating new work and/or dusting off older work you’ve been wanting to develop.
The guest judge will choose three winners from among all entrants; the winners receive free consults with Sheila as well as publication of their winning essay. Sheila wants everyone to be a winner and by receiving her detailed response to your submitted writing, you get a head start in making your writing sing.
If you are not a current Writing It Real member, sign up to receive our quarterly announcements of events, classes and upcoming contests or become a member now.
Send us what you have (up to 1500 words or three poems) or create a draft (even a freewrite will do). If you’d like, use this prompt for your freewrite: This is what I see from where I sit: ___________. And this is what I think of when I look more closely: ___________.
The online form allows you to pay the reading fee of $15 via paypal or you can mail a check to Writing It Real, 394 Colman Drive, Port Townsend, WA 98368. You’ll receive Sheila’s detailed response within one week. Revise and resubmit (at no extra charge) for the guest judge’s consideration. The detailed response is guaranteed to speed you on your way to a finished piece, which may, of course, be longer or shorter than the original, as revision frequently means putting in what we left out or leaving out what turns out to be unnecessary. 1st place – two 30-minute consults with Sheila; 2nd and 3rd place, one 30-minute consult each.
Prepare your entries and enter soon!
The contest fee for nonmembers includes a $35 Courier level year’s membership to Writing It Real, plus the contest reading fee of $5. Please use the Add to Cart button below to join now. If you are already a member, please login now to pay the $5 reading fee and make your contest submission. After you submit your payment, you will be routed to the contest submission form.
If you have questions, email us; be sure your submission is attached as a double-spaced Word document. We will not be able to read submissions that are in another file type. If you prefer, send your double-spaced manuscript and a check to 394 Colman Drive, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Either way, include a cover letter with your name, address, email address and phone number as well as the name of your submitted pieces. Do not put your name on the submission itself.
Need some encouragement?
“At the core of the personal essay,” Philip Lopate writes, “is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience.” As essayists and, to my mind, poets, in writing about ourselves and our experiences, we are in some way talking about everyone. It is not only our experience that matters, but our interest in sharing it that moves others.
Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, put it this way in his acceptance speech, “All true literature rises form this childish, hopeful certainty that we resemble one another.”
As personal essayists and as poets, we work very hard to catapult ourselves, via our words, into new territory. When we are done, the beautiful web of our thinking and associations glistens. It is as if we are working toward the creation of love and compassion even when we are writing of horrors. The Dalai Lama says that love and compassion are not luxuries but necessities because without them we lose our humanity. For those of us who write, words on the page are our way of moving toward those necessities.
To judge a personal essay contest means first to be an interested reader, honoring that I am being let in on all manner of human experience. For me, this work is not only pleasurable, but elicits my gratitude.
— Sheila Bender