WRITE ON: The 2008 VITAL Source Short Fiction Contest

In early 2007, the VITAL staff decided to hold a local literary competition. We did our research and learned that the average submission length in established fiction contests is 5,000 to 10,000 words – or 5 to 10 printed pages. That sounded fair, but out of our reach given our compact, 32-page size. And it would definitely squeeze out poets, who were also a high priority for us. Ultimately, in the interest of inclusivity, we invited both short stories and poems, but space dictated capping word counts at 1,500.

If you’ve ever written down an idea longer than a grocery list, you won’t be surprised that it severely limited our entrants’ ability to let their narratives breathe. This was obvious to us as soon as submissions started coming in. Many of the stories were clearly excerpted from longer pieces; some got off to a beautiful, fluid start and then rushed to an awkward finish, and a few managed to move from beginning to end with some fluidity.

In the end, we were proud to print the winners, even though felt we’d done a disservice to the authors who participated. We hope we’ve corrected our error now, even though it meant sacrificing poetry for 2008.

So enjoy our two winning stories -- Chickens by Craig Reinbold and The Phreaks by Ken Brosky -- and our three honorable mention entries by Justin Burke, Jason Hart and Ken Olson. All five will read their work at Schwartz on Downer Ave. on June 12 the details for which are also on our site. One of our judges, best-selling author and Alverno English professor Carole Barrowman, will also premiere excerpts from her just-completed novel. —Jon Anne Willow