Olympic Writing!

In honor of the Winter Olympics happening right now in Sochi, Russia, I’m adding a new event to the blog… Short Story Showcase! The Olympic committee added Slopestyle this year and it’s turned out to be an amazing snowboarding event. So, I decided to try something new too!

Short Story Showcase will be a place where kids can post their entire story from start to finish- up to 800 words. I chose that number because many children’s magazines like Highlights for Children use this word count for the short stories they publish. It’s plenty of words to create a great story!

The first event will happen on April  30^th.  I will post up to 5 stories at each event. If I get more than that I’ll save them for the next Short Story Showcase. You can submit your short story at any time for this showcase beginning March 1st.  Send your complete story with Short Story Showcase written in the subject line to swirlandspark@gmail.com.  Be sure to include the title and your name (no last names please) to your story. Full details can be found on the Short Story Showcase tab, which will be posted to the blog soon. So keep checking back!

I’m really excited for this event- excited to read your stories and excited for you to have a place to showcase them! April is just around the corner so I hope you’ll take the next few weeks to work on yours. If you have any friends who’ve written a great story or might like to write one, please tell them about this awesome event. It a great chance for any up and coming author to show the world their work! Your story can be about anything you like…dragons, elephants, princesses, ski racing, figure skating, whatever!  It can be a fantasy story, a realistic story or a mystery. Whatever interests you will probably interest the rest of us.

Why not give it a shot?  Write a story. Because, like Wayne Gretzky- one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  And he’s right. 🙂

So on that note, I’m off to watch the Olympics. I can’t think of a better place to find inspiration for any goal.  Speed skating, downhill skiing, or writing! Let the games begin!