Seven Lines

Opium Magazine is taking submissions from now until December 15th for The Shya Scanlon Seven-Line Prose Award. It's pretty much just what it sounds like: A prize for the best seven-line story. A thousand bucks. That's like, what, $140 per line? About $10 per word? I'm pretty sure that's more than even The New Yorker pays. But it will cost you a seven-dollar entry fee for a shot at the cash. Why don't you go and give it a try?

I worked on a story over the weekend that I plan to submit. I'd written a few thousand words on a story called "Amtrak," and I managed to whittle it down to seven lines--113 words. Also, since yesterday was the last day of classes, I had my Beginning Fiction class bring seven-line stories of their own to class, and the results were pretty impressive.

For my two or three regular readers out there: This is my 100th post. I've so been keeping a couple Coors Lights in the fridge for just such an occasion.