*UPDATE: Round 5 has begun. Details HERE!*

Our first three Micro Fiction Writing Competitions have been a wonderful success and we were very impressed by the quality of entrants. We are getting very excited about the anthology and the quality of stories that will be featured. The winners and shortlist for round 3 have been published (you can read the results HERE) and now it’s on to round 4.
If you fancy yourself a bit of a writer and enjoy telling a tale then why not have a go at this competition. You could score yourself $50 (AUD) for first place or $20 (AUD) for 2nd or 3rd place, plus the top 10 shortlisted stories, including the 3 winners (from 6 competitions, so 60 stories in total) will be featured in an anthology to be published by the end of 2020.

Competition opens on the 14th of April

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

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FLASH: Writing the very short story by John Dufresne

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Themes

This Competition is the fourth of 6 Micro-Fiction Writing Competitions run over the next year, ending with an anthology publication sometime between July and November 2020 (exact dates will be known closer to the time). Each competition will have a slightly different theme but revolve around the idea of Motherhood. The 6 different sub-themes are:

1. Mother (November/December ’19 COMPLETED)
2. GrandMother (January ’20 COMPLETED)
3. Single Mother (February/March ’20 COMPLETED)
4. Step-Mother (CURRENT)
5. Great GrandMother
6. Foster Mother

The comps will be run in this order and competition start and finish dates will be released at the end of each preceding competition. Competitions will run for 10 days (unless extended), judging for 2 weeks, at the commencement of which, the winners will be announced!

Sign up to our mailing list to be notified when a new competition has begun.

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This Months Competition

This month’s theme is ‘Step-Mother’ (April ’20) and it can be interpreted any way you like. You don’t have to include the words ‘Step-Mother’ but it must be clear your story is about, you guessed it…a Step-Mother.

Whilst I’d love to keep the competition free to enter, administration costs have started to take their toll on my bank account and it’s become necessary to charge a very small fee (to cover costs) of just $2 AUD. I do lose a bit of that to Paypal fees so what I’m getting is very minimal and doesn’t even completely cover the prize money that I give away so please don’t put off by the small entry cost as you are helping contribute to your’s or someone else’s success and publication as an author. A noble deed indeed!
Please read the competition rules below and then follow the link to our competition T & C’s where there will be an entry form to fill in with your story. Good Luck!

Competition Rules and Guidelines

‘Step-Mother’ Competition Dates: April 14th 2020 – April 24th 2020 (Extended till 14th May) @ midnight AEST. Judging will commence on the 25th of April (Extended till the 15th of May) 2020, with the shortlist and winners being announced on the 8th of May (Extended till the 25th of May) 2020.

Open to: Worldwide (but must be written in English), 16 years or older.

Rules:

1. 500 words or less.
2. Narrative Fiction (no poetry please).
3. Must be about a Step-Mother.
4. No gratuitous violence, sexual content, blood & gore or profanity.
5. Must agree to the T & C’s.
6. Your story must not already be published anywhere else.
7. The $2 AUD entry fee must be paid via Paypal to mumlifestories@gmail.com and must clear before the competition end date in order for your entry to qualify. Please also insure you enter the email address you use for PayPal into the section provided on the entry form so we can match your payment to your entry.

Submission:

1. Story to be typed in a doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt formatted document.
2. 12 point, Times New Roman or Georgia Text.
3. Title of story should appear at the top of the document and in the file name.
4. Your name should not appear on the document (submissions will be read blind so if your name is on the doc it will not be accepted).
5. Click HERE to go to the form where you can attach your story file, or go to the T & C’s page and enter there.

Judging:

There will be 2 judges, myself and one of our regular story contributors Fiona M. Jones.

1. Stories will be read ‘blind’ without author names attached so as to avoid bias.
2. We will not be giving feedback on stories at this point in time, apart from general opinions on the winning entries that will be published on the blog.
3. While our opinions and personal taste will play a small role in the judging, we will be looking at the structure, form, originality and storytelling technique of each submission.
4. We both have different tastes but will work together, discussing all elements of the story to come up with 10 stories for the shortlist and then 3 winners.
5. All decisions are final and will not be open to discussion.

You can read more about the judges on our ‘About‘ page.

Prizes:

1st Place – $50 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + a printed copy of the anthology + digital copy of the anthology.

2nd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of the anthology.

3rd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of the anthology

Shortlist (Top 10) – Published in anthology + digital copy of the anthology

Submit:

Click HERE to go to the entry form.

Go to the T & C’s page.

Sign up to mailing list to get a reminder when the competition is about to close & keep informed of upcoming competitions, plus receive a FREE Ebook.

Good Luck and Have Fun Writing!

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