Short Story Contest: Life’s too Short … The Second Round is On, Submit Your Masterpiece

Posted on March 5, 2011
Filed Under >Adil Najam, Art & Literature
14 Comments
Total Views: 53451

Adil Najam

After the great success of the first contest, the second ‘Life’s Too Short’ Short Story Contest has now been announced. The submission deadline is March 31, 2011. – so if you are an aspiring short story writer of Pakistani origin, do submit soon!

My pitch for why this is a good (maybe great) idea was already made last year and after the excellent anthology that came out of that first attempt (even though I have not yet gotten around to reviewing it here, it was really an excellent read) that pitch need be made no more.

Suffice to say, I agree with the flyer, above: “Following the success of the first Life’s Too Short Story Prize … it’s safe to say that Pakistani short story is alive and well.”

The rules are simple, and all contained in the poster above.

  • Stories need to be submitted to lifestooshortentry@gmail.com by March 31, 2011.
  • Participants must be of Pakistani origin.
  • The stories may have any theme or subject, but should not exceed 5,000 words.
  • The stories must be original and should not have been previously published anywhere in part or full.
  • All entries must be in English.
  • Only one entry per person.
  • Entries will not be returned or acknowledged.
  • Selected entrants will assign publication rights to Siren Publications.
  • Only winners will be notified

The judges this year are Musharraf Ali Farooqi (The Adventures of Amir Hamza / Story of a Widow), Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist / Moth Smoke); and Sara Suleri Goodyear (Meatless Days / Boys Will Be Boys). The top three stories will get prizes of Rs. 100,000, Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 20,000 respectively.

The contest is, once again, being organized by Faiza S. Khan and Aysha Raja with support from the Zohra and ZZ Ahmed Foundation. To them goes our gratitude for implementing this wonderful idea. And to all the rest of you go our best wishes if you do indeed enter into the contest. If so, hurry up and submit your masterpiece!

14 responses to “Short Story Contest: Life’s too Short … The Second Round is On, Submit Your Masterpiece”

  1. jawad says:

    Maybe we can write a story together. About a man who hates the English language. He lectures everyone about it in English. He hangs out at English blogs and expresses sympathy (in English) for all the Urdu speakers.

  2. Erum says:

    Good to see this is being continued. I would love to be able to read the winner of last year’s contest. Could ATP please post that story here. I think lots of people would like that.

  3. ASAD says:

    Maybe Mr. “Handsome” (what idiotic arrogance) should actually have the post translated into Urdu so he could realize this is a contest being done by someone else.

    But the larger point is that we really have become a nation of whiners. Do your contest in Urdu, Mr “Handsome” (why is your false name in English!) or in Punjabi or Pushto or German if you want. But why whine and cry all the. Do something useful yourself. Otherwise stop the whinning and finding faults with the few who do!

  4. Handsome says:

    why in English only?

    you should change your website name into Englistaniat!!

  5. HaroON says:

    Great effort guys.

    Ignore the jalla bhunna types, they can only find faults.

    The quality of writing coming out of Pakistan recently has been fantastic and this is a great initiative to get even more.

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