As we were lounging about the Scribo-castle pondering our next writing contest (steins of mead in hand, of course), we realized that in the two-and-some years Scribophile's been around, the one kind of contest we haven't had yet is a fantasy writing contest. It's time to fix that!

Introducing the Swords and Sorcery contest, the contest where we get to read your fantasy short stories. Break out your maces, axes, and hammers, polish your claymores, dust off your wands, put on your robes and wizard hats, get the elves drunk, grease up the dwarves for battle, and write the best damn fantasy short story you can!

Submit your under-3000-word fantasy-themed short stories before August 15 to be considered. Have fun, and who knows, maybe we'll see the next Lord of the Rings come from a Scribophile...

Art is often influenced by other art, and the art of writing is no exception. Have you heard of a kind of poem called ekphrasis? No? Then you might be surprised to learn that some of the English language's most famous poems are ekphrasis: Ode on a Grecian Urn, Elegaic Stanzas, and Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, to name just a few.

Ekphrasis is a poem describing or meditating on an existing work of art: a painting, a sculpture, a building, and so on. It can range from being a graphic description to an abstract reflection and everything in between.

To enter this month's contest, compose an ekphrasis of under 600 words. You can pick any visual work of art to be the subject of your poem, but it has to be real—no making up paintings! While you could write an ekphrasis about something non-visual, for this contest you must be able to see your subject (so you can't write about a poem or a song). Bonus points if you include a link to a picture of your chosen artwork in your work description.

It's a new year and a new decade, just the perfect time to make some fresh starts.

We hope your new year's resolution is to write more—and in that spirit, this contest has some awesome prizes to get you motivated!

Write a short story (under 3000 words) featuring the theme "new beginnings." The first place winner will receive a $100 Amazon.com gift card and a credit for 3000 words of editing service from the great folks at Elite Editing. 2nd place will receive a $50 Amazon.com gift card.

Happy new year, and good luck!

November is coming up, and you know what that means: warm up your word processors, refill your fountain pens, gnaw at your pencils, sharpen your quill nubs, and set the espresso machine to overdrive because it's NaNoWriMo time!

It's that magical time of year where writers from all over the world hunch down in their favorite writing corners to produce a 50,000 word novel. Some will succeed, some will fail, but most everyone should be able to get Chapter 1 done—and that brings us to this month's contest!

Submit the first chapter of the NaNoWriMo novel you're writing to enter our NaNoWriMo '09 writing contest. It won't be your best work ever (after all, 50,000 words in 30 days is a lot to write), but that's the point. We want to see your raw, unedited writing. Everyone will be on the same playing field, so don't be shy—let's see what you've got. Good luck!

We'll admit it: we're huge Star Trek nerds. One of our favorite characters is Data, an android who spends much of the series lamenting his lack of human emotion. After watching Data bumbling through a few episodes last month (beer and nostalgia always make for an interesting combination), we were struck with inspiration for our next writing contest.

The theme for this contest is "Computer Love" (and we don't mean the Kraftwerk song). Write an original science fiction short story, under 3000 words, that features some kind of mechanical construct—a computer, a robot, an android, a spaceship, whatever you can imagine—and the greatest of human emotions: love. As long as you've got those two things, the rest is up to you!

Entries are due by September 30, 2009, and first prize is a $100 Amazon.com gift card. Get your word processors warmed up, and good luck!