Photo by Ann Leibovitz
- April is National Gooseberry Month and in celebration we are launching our first writing contest.
- We have pulled out all the stops and have lured in Superstar Peg Mokrass, the world’s only flash fiction literary agent, who was once crowned “Miss Gooseberry Pie”. Mokrass recently completed a memoir entitled “When Small Became Big: Diary of a Flash Fiction Agent”. She divides her time between Florence, New York, Paris and Milan. Find out more about Peg Mokrass here.
- Please follow Peg’s prompt for your submission:
- Write a 6 sentence story that includes either the word “gooseberry” or “pie”.
- See if you can include either an imperfect item of clothing or an animal with a limp.
- Optional prompt words: throat, stinger, solid, nails, swallow, muddy
- Submission Guidelines are slightly different than our regular guidelines. Please follow these:
- Submissions open April 1, 2024 and close at 11:59PM P.S.T. April 10, 2024.
- Email one story to gooseberrypie.contest@gmail.com. For the contest, we are only accepting one story per person. Copy and paste your submission into the body of an email along with you 25 word or less bio.
- Submit one story with exactly six-sentences and less than 400 words.
Title does not count as one of the six sentences or towards the word count. Follow Peg’s prompt (item #3). - No previously published material. No AI.
- Simultaneous submissions are fine. Notify us promptly if accepted elsewhere.
- Contest is open to everyone, regardless of the date of your last submission to Gooseberry Pie.
- Be good citizens. No submissions with hatred, prejudice or violence.
- Non-winning entries will still be eligible to be published in a regular issue of Gooseberry Pie.
- Winners will be notified before April 30, 2024. Winning entries will be published in a special issue of Gooseberry Pie on May 9, 2024.
- Prizes will be sent via PayPal or Venmo. Do not provide this information with your entry. We will contact you for that information if needed. You must have one of these accounts (PayPal or Venmo) in order to receive your winnings. And the prizes are:
- First Place: $250.00 (USD)
- Second Place: $100.00 (USD)
- Third Place: $50.00 (USD)
