I know, I know, “finally”, I hear you say. Yes, at last Round 5 of the Mum Life Stories, Micro Fiction Writing Competition is here. Let the crowds go wild, woot woot.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been eagerly anticipating the return of our competition, and I sincerely apologize for keeping you all hanging, but all good things come to those who wait, so I’m expecting this to be our best round yet!

If you missed out on reading the winning entries for round 4, way back at the beginning of June, you can find them right HERE along with the shortlist HERE and don’t forget to visit our competitions page for all the past winners of our previous rounds.

*Please note: This competition has ended and winners have been announced. Please check our competitions page for info on the next round*

Round 5

The theme of this round is ‘Great Grandmother’, so all those entries that featured 100-year-old grandmothers in round 2 (which didn’t make it to the shortlist) can be re-hashed with this new theme. You could score yourself $50 (AUD) for first place or $20 (AUD) for 2nd or 3rd place. Exciting right?

Even more exciting is that this is our second last round for the year, which means we are just one more round away from our 60 stories and our very first Mum Life Stories anthology. The top 10 shortlisted stories from each round, will be featured in this anthology to be published (all being well) by the end of 2020.

Competition opens midnight AEST tonight, the 1st of April!

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.

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FLASH: Writing the very short story by John Dufresne

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Micro Fiction Competition Themes

This Competition is the fifth of 6 Micro Fiction Writing Competitions run over the year of 2020, ending with an anthology publication, hopefully sometime before 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 (March) COMPLETED)
5. Great GrandMother (CURRENT)
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 14 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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About This Months Micro-Fiction Competition

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

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 be 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

‘Great Grandmother’ Competition Dates: August 1st 2020 – August 14th 2020 (extended till 24th of August) @ midnight AEST. Judging will commence on the 15th of August 2020 (extended till the 25th of August), with the shortlist being announced by the 29th of August 2020 (extended till the 7th of September) and the winners announced shortly thereafter.

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 Great Grandmother.
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. The title of your 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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Writing Flash – How to craft & publish flash fiction for a booming market (Kindle Edition)

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