Contest | Cathy C. Hall Writes

Yeah, I know Alalit sounds funny…like somehow a martini should be involved. And for all I know, martinis were flowing at the Alabama Writers Conclave get-together this summer when awards were presented. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the festivities.

So, I had to wait all these weeks to find out how my story, “The Chocolate Cake Bait,” fared in the competition. And now, doot-doot-doo-doot-do-do-doooo: Second Prize in Juvenile Fiction!

The doot-doo’s are supposed to be horn-tooting, in case you were wondering. And Alalit is the magazine where you can find my story, in case you were wondering about that, too. You can click here to read, but you’ll have to do some searching before you get to “The Chocolate Cake Bait.”But go ahead and read a few of the other winners’ stuff on your way.

Lots of fine writing in Alalit, even if it does sound a little funny. And they also sent a sweet check. (Nothing funny about that! Um, I hope.)

Who would have guessed that August would have so many contests? My guess is that the people who come up with contests come back from vacation all refreshed and bursting with great ideas. So let’s take a peek at some of these great ideas…

FundsforWriters is sponsoring its annual fee/no fee contest. I LOVE this idea. You can write an essay for either the Fee contest or the No Fee contest, but the theme is the same: The Best Advice I Ever Had and followed OR The Best Advice I Ever Had and ignored. Um, right off the bat, I think it might be easier for me to write about the latter topic. I could write a book about the advice my mom gave. And she could probably write a book about me not heeding her advice (Title: I TOLD You So, Cathy). Check out all the details here.

Over at The Muse Marquee, you can find The Mother Hen’s latest contest. It’s a no fee, short fiction contest, but you’ll need to check out the details here before you start writing.

And you still have time to submit to the WOW!Women-on-writing flash fiction summer contest. It’s an open theme this time around so polish up one of your favorite flash stories and send it in before the end of August.

Oh! I almost forgot my own contest entry! Life in the USA is sponsoring an essay contest with no fee and a prize of $1,000! Life in the USA is a website devoted to helping students and immigrants develop a better understanding of guess what? Life in the USA. So if your essay is accepted (yep, you’ve got to query first!) it will be published and available online and then judged by an independent panel of judges. Clicking on a story doesn’t affect the outcome of the prizes, but you know you want to read my essay. So check it out here. Even if I don’t win a prize, I can be happy in the knowledge that somewhere, a teenage girl has taken my older-but-wiser advice.

Which, I guess, is more than I can say for myself.