Here are the contest instructions:

-- Write a story using one of the following writing prompts:

1) Imagine if your favorite character from 19th-century English fiction had been born without ears. Then write a short story about him winning 50,000 Sterling Pounds at the Monte Carlo Casino.

2) Write a story that ends with the following sentence: ' "Let me go. You… you… to talk of love. You don’t know what it is. Let me go… let me go!"

3) Think of the most important secret your best friend has ever entrusted you with. Write a story in which you reveal it to everyone, here in my blog. Write it again from the point of view of your ex-best friend.

4) Your secondary character finds a box of scorched Yetti pubis hair. How did it get there?

5) Write a short scene set at a forest with a river, pine trees and shit. Throw some exotic birds in there, too.

6) Popular music is often a good source of writing inspiration. Rewrite Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" as a play.

* * *

-- Make sure the story is 500 words or less.

-- Send your story, pasted into the body of the 'comment' below.

-- Send your story by 5 p.m., Wednesday, June 21, 2016.

-- Mr. 69Whisper has graciously agreed to judge the contest.

-- We'll reveal the prizes next week.

(Reposting Irles post here with his permission. Stroy may please be 'commented' on Irles' Blog)

posted by: saycheese (reply)
post date: 11.25.06 (5:29 am)

Can I write in Thai? lol

good luck people :)

posted by: irles (reply)
post date: 11.25.06 (11:19 am)

Your first story, judge...

* * *

BY SURROGATE.

The river rumbled by, ignoring me completely. I'd walked for about five miles, give or take and though I traveled along what had at one time obviously been a path; the half-healed slashes in tree trunks at eye level every twenty-five feet or so proving it; I knew things here grew furiously fast and so thick was the brush that I'd worked hard for half a day to come this far.

Why, I thought, would I use my prize money for this? I knew the answer, of course, her words echoed continuously in my head even now amid the roaring water. "Let me go. You… you… to talk of love. You don’t know what it is. Let me go… let me go!"

And why? Just because her sister had insisted I come look at the damn things. I didn't know what they were! I swear I didn't even know yeti's HAD pubis, let alone that Wanda knew her sister had been keeping them for so many years. Why, I wondered, is it my fault that it got out when no one bothered to tell me it was supposed to be a secret in the first place?

I walked on, for some reason wishing I was familiar enough to work in Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" to work it into my internal monologue. It just didn't come, but having learned that being best friends with your lover's sister is a sure-fire way to lose both of them AND having been just by shit upon by some multi-colored bird, I was in no mood to add to my recurring play-list of thoughts anyway.

Thankfully, after stumbling upon and finally deciding to sit and rest a while on an old pine stump that looked as though it had been hit and sheared off by lightning, I rubbed my sore calf muscles, reviewed my options, and did a word count.

To my dismay, I realized I'd already said far too much.

posted by: Bjoernstjern Bjöernson (reply)
post date: 11.25.06 (6:35 pm)

I'm a young Sweedish cop who likes American short stories. A true short-story is something other and something more than a mere story which is short, as Mr. Surogate proves here with his great talent. I've enjoyed very much reading it.

posted by: 69whisper (reply)
post date: 11.26.06 (9:11 pm)

Reply to: saycheese
you can write in Thai only if you translate it too :)