Hacking the Hacks

This morning I learned about a “Hackathon” short story contest by Owl Canyon (details here) and the premise is unlike any other writing contest I’ve ever seen: they provide the first paragraph and the last, and it’s your task to complete the story with exactly eighteen intermediate paragraphs of at least fifty words each.

Naturally, I’m gonna try my hand at it–and because they also allow multiple submissions, I thought it would provide an excellent opportunity to do something daring.

I’m going to write multiple stories–and each of them will have a different genre.

So, to get started, I thought I’d take some time to dive deep into the writing “prompts” and brainstorm some ways I can tackle it from such different perspectives.

make/100

It’s been a good while (like, I don’t know, five whole months) since I’ve shared anything here, and when I created this second branch of the Writingwolf a few years back, I never imagined I’d ever let so much time go by without sharing a single poem or short story.

Of course, I also hadn’t anticipated how time consuming being a full-time teacher and a full-time grad student would be, so the absence is, at least, somewhat understandable.

This year I want to break that silence and share more poetry, more prose, and perhaps even more art than ever before. To help me reach this goal, I’ve started a Kickstarter to create 100 handwritten postcards of poetry, prose, and art inspired by every backer.

And then, after I’ve mailed them all, I’ll begin sharing them here, to spread the joy of reading even further than that first group of 100.

More importantly, it’s an exciting way for me to connect with my readers and make something unique and special while doing it.

Please consider backing today and sharing the project with others.

make/100 Handwritten Poetry and Prose