Bucks County Community College invites the public to enter its third annual Bucks County Short Fiction contest for a chance to win up to $200 and be honored at a campus reception.
Bucks County residents who are 18 years of age and older and out of high school are invited to submit one story of up to 12 typewritten, double-spaced pages by noon on Thursday, Oct. 17. Stories must be previously unpublished, including in online formats.
Elizabeth Luciano, the literature professor who launched the contest, said the competition is a unique opportunity for writers to have their voices heard.
“The college has long played an active role in nurturing the creative writing community, most notably through the Bucks County Poet Laureate and Bucks County High School Poet of the Year contests,” Luciano said. “This project adds to that synergy by encouraging fiction writers throughout the county.”
All submissions must be entered online. Bucks County Community College employees (both full- and part-time) and not eligible. To enter, visit bucks.edu/shortfictioncontest.
The contest will be judged blindly by Kelly Simmons, a Philadelphia-area writer whose books include One More Day, The Fifth of July and The Bird House. Her fifth novel, Where She Went, will be released Oct. 1 by Sourcebooks.
The top three winners in the contest will receive honoraria of $200, $100 and $50, respectively. The winners will be invited to read their work at a public reception on Saturday, Dec. 7 at 2 p.m., in room 142 of Tyler Hall on the campus at 275 Swamp Road, Newtown. Simmons will also read from her works at the reception.
Young scribes will be encouraged to enter the Bucks County High School Short Fiction contest this spring. Details of that contest will be announced in early 2020.
For more information, contact Luciano at Elizabeth.Luciano@bucks.edu or the Language and Literature Department at 215-968-8167.
