Deadline for miniStories Competition Extended to May 15

Call For Submissions from Magers & Quinn and mnartists.org

For all Minnesota InDigest folk: Magers & Quinn and mnartists.org continue their fantastic flash fiction contest miniStories (and I'm not just saying that because one of my stories was a finalist). If you're a MN resident, what are you waiting for? Details below.

miniStories FLASH FICTION COMPETITION

miniStories is a flash fiction competition series which spotlights original short-short stories by Minnesota writers. Twenty pieces will be selected for publication by a panel of noted authors, editors, and publishing industry veterans from across the country. We're pleased to announce that novelist Geoff Herbach is returning for a second year as lead juror in the miniStories competition. From the pool of 20 winning authors, 3 grand prize-winners will be selected to receive a paid commission for a second short story (which may or may not be flash fiction) to be published by mnartists.org. Grand prize-winners' commissioned pieces will go through a full editing process and will be illustrated for publication with specially chosen artwork from the vast database of mnartists.org artists.

THERE WILL ONLY BE ONE CALL FOR MINISTORIES SUBMISSIONS FOR 2009:

DEADLINE THURSDAY, APRIL 30

Eligibility and Submission guidelines:

Any Minnesota resident may submit up to three previously unpublished pieces of flash fiction, in any genre; each submission should be no longer than 500 words in length. Stories should be submitted as email attachments to stories@mnartists.org (preferably formatted as Word documents) or pasted into the body of an email. Please put "miniStories flash fiction submission" in the subject line of your email.

You must be a resident of Minnesota and become a member of mnartists.org to have work published in this contest. At the time entrants to miniStories submit their flash-fiction for consideration, they should also submit a low-res (72 dpi) photograph of themselves, a brief bio (no more than 150 words). With this biographical information, entrants should also include links to any relevant personal websites or blogs they would like mentioned should their story(ies) be selected.

Guernica Magazine Sponsors a PEN World Voices Event

To all InDigest readers in New York: As part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, Guernica Magazine (where I am the blog editor) is cosponsoring the following event this Saturday, May 2 from 1-2:30pm. Hope to see you there.

May 2, 2009 | Standing Before History: Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa

Introduction by Larry Siems, with Ken Wiwa, Richard North Patterson, with a reading by Steve Connell and Sekou; moderated by Okey Ndibe

On November 10, 1995, Nigeria’s military dictatorship hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of the country’s most acclaimed and popular writers and the leader of a grassroots environmental movement in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta. The region still seethes with unrest and many of the issues Saro-Wiwa gave his life to raise will be the subject of a lawsuit opening in New York this week against oil interests for complicity in his murder. Join Ken Wiwa Jr. and author Richard North Patterson for a discussion of Ken Saro-Wiwa's literary and political legacy, with readings from Saro-Wiwa’s work by Steve Connell and Sekou.

When: Saturday, May 2, 2009: 1–2:30 p.m.
Where: Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue [directions]

Free and open to the public
Cosponsored by Guernica magazine and the Martin E. Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Big Thanks to Deb Olin Unferth and Sam Osterhout

Thanks to Deb and Sam for making April's installment of InDigest 1207 an unforgettable night.

FYI: Sam read "Gold" from Donald Hall and an excerpt from the story "Gazebo" by Raymond Carver, while Deb read "Marriage and the Family" from Diane Williams' book Excitability.

Thanks to all who came out. If you couldn't make April, make sure to check out the schedule for the next few months. We have some great readers joining us, including Jennifer L. Knox, Dorothea Lasky, and Wayne Miller in May; Rodrigo Toscano’s Collapsible Poetics Theater, Angela Ball, and Giao V. Buu in June; and John Wray in August.