Spark: A Creative Anthology Contest Six

Details

Theme

The theme for this contest has several lofty terms: self-reflection, introspection, epiphany. We’ve chosen a simpler way to describe it: “You Are Here.”

Good stories give us characters we can connect to and make us care what happens to them–maybe not like them, but at least make us care what happens. The best stories go further and show some progression, development, or change in the main character. Sometimes the reader sees the change but the character does not. Other times, the character is actually aware of their personal development and understands that they have a new perspective.

For this contest, present a story where the main character or characters not only go through growth and development, as is appropriate for a good story arc, but are aware by the end of the piece that they’ve changed.

Two pieces from Spark which can be used as examples are “Perspective” by Michelle Soudier, a winning entry in a past contest and later published in Spark, Volume II, and “The Clock has Ceased its Ticking” by Alexis Hunter, published in Volume V.

Artwork

The artwork for this contest, and subsequently for the cover of Volume VII, will be created by Tatiana Marlee and is based on the painting “You Are Here” from her recent (successful) application to the California State Summer School for the Arts as the “self-reflection” assignment. The painting this artwork will be based on is the picture you see at the top of this contest listing.

Guest Judges

• D.A. Gray, published poet, contributor to Spark, and past Spark contest winner
• Danielle Lazarin, MFA, author and fiction workshop instructor

Formats

• Poetry: Any style, meter, rhyme scheme, or form, but must be less than 150 lines.
• Prose: Fiction or creative nonfiction must be no more than 12,000 words.

Awards

There are prizes for both poetry and prose categories, so each prize level has two winners. The Grand Prize award package includes cash, publication, and a Lifetime Premium Membership here at Scribophile. See the contest details page at http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/six for the full prize list.

How to Enter

This contest is not hosted by Scribophile, so posting it for critique won’t enter you in the contest (but it will increase your chances of winning)! For full contest guidelines, rules & restrictions, and links to enter your work, see http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/six.

About the Guest Judges

D.A. Gray retired from the US Army in 2012 and currently studies as a graduate student and MFA candidate. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Poetry Salzburg Review, Bellow Literary Journal, O’Dark Thirty: The Report, Good Men Project, and the upcoming 94 Creations. His collection of poetry, Overwatch, dealing with the return home from Operation Iraqi Freedom, was published by Grey Sparrow Press in November, 2011.

Danielle Lazarin’s fiction has been published by Five Chapters, Boston Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. Her story “Spider Legs” won first prize in Glimmer Train’s Family Matters competition and can be found in Glimmer Train #88. A graduate of Oberlin College’s creative writing program, she received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where her stories and essays won Avery and Jule Hopwood Awards. She is a three-time recipient of an individual artist grant from The Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. She lives in her native New York, where she is raising her daughters and working on a novel and a collection of short stories.

Winning entries

Winners have been announced! Log in to see them.

Prizes

Rules

For full contest guidelines, rules & restrictions, and links to enter your work, see http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/six. A few notable points from that list:

• Publication Rights remain with the author or poet. Grand Prize winners are not obligated to publish their winning entry in Spark, but if our publication offer is accepted, the cash portion of the prize serves to purchase First Publication rights as outlined on our Rights & Rates page.

• Because this contest is judged blindly—that is, the author’s name is withheld from the judges—please omit personal information (such as author name or contact details) from the manuscript.

• Judges will be unable to provide feedback on specific pieces.

• Spark: A Creative Anthology reserves the right to post “No Award” for either category in the event that fewer than 30 total entries are received or fewer than three qualified entries can be selected for the final round of judging. This has happened before: in Contest Three (too few total entries) and Contest Five (too few finalists).

Submission guidelines

• For full contest guidelines, rules & restrictions, and links to enter your work, see http://SparkAnthology.org/contests/six.

• Contest entries will be accepted from June 15, 2014 until the stroke of midnight, U.S. Pacific Time, on July 2, 2014. (In other words, make sure your entries are in before 11:59 pm on July 1).

• There are no genre restrictions for this contest, and content guidelines are similar to our standard submission guidelines, including what we are not accepting.

• Contest Six awards prizes for poetry and prose according to our contest judging criteria.

• Prose includes both fiction and creative nonfiction, but we have not divided the category further because we believe that well-written creative nonfiction should tell a story so well that the result is indistinguishable from fiction. Prose must be less than 12,000 words.

• Poetry includes all styles, meters, and rhyme schemes, or may be free-form. Poetry must be less than 150 lines.