<p>Agk, don’t you know how horrible that sounds? Why do you say such things!?!?!? :(:(:(</p>
<p>I was feeling so confident when I submitted…and I’ve checked thisispush.com every day since mid-April. I have a feeling I’ll get hit pretty hard come May 15th. </p>
<p>What type of stuff have you guys been submitting? I write, for the most part, experimental prose. I love, love, love metafiction. I’m looking for a short story contest designed for experimental pieces. I’ve found a couple, but they want relatively short short pieces . . . like 1500 words short. I’m nearing 10,000 words . . . if any of youse could help me out with that, that would be wonderful.</p>
<p>Glad I’m not the only one. I check push, scholastic, this board and last year’s winner blog (it has a lot of good information) daily…</p>
<p>Who knows? Maybe you’ll be a merit winner, or with any luck, they haven’t announced the winners so it’ll be a great day for one of us…</p>
<p>Metafiction sounds intersting…I deal with urban-type fantasy (none of that vampire or fairy stuff though…no offense to anyone…). I also do more realistic writing when working with short stories. Very all over the place, if you will.</p>
<p>As for the short story contests, sorry, can’t help you there. I’ve searched and searched, and all the ones I found require very small word counts. But good luck with your search!</p>
<p>Pretty much the type of stuff PUSH publishes. Like Kevin Brooks and Matthue Roth… I’ve never tried fantasy, but I really admire anyone who can do it. It’d be like writing a convincing story with characters and that, AND inventing a whole new world for them to live in. Jeez. Nah, my stuff is grittier, I suppose.</p>
<p>Are there any examples of winning writing? I remember when Eunju Namkung read aloud on NPR but I can’t find any samples on the site. I’m planning on trying next time around and I’d like to know if I’m at all up to par.</p>
<p>There is no par you should be worried about. If you look at someone’s writing as some sort of standard, you’ll more or less be seeing yourself imitating it. All I recommend is you read a lot. Doing so, you’ll find things you like, things you’ll adopt for your own writing. I think every writer’s toolset is a melting pot of influences amassed from writers who have came before. Writing, as is any art, is something completely personal.</p>
<p>My book was about 50,000 words when I submitted it… and it’s a piece on escapism, dealing with issues like disillusionment and psychological problems, but ultimately having a rather hopeful message about one’s perception of the world. And it’s disguised as a rollicking steampunk adventure, filled with dry wit and lobster-powered rayguns.</p>
<p>Yeah… not the kind of thing they were going for, but I gave it a shot anyway. It’s really interesting to see what other people have submitted.</p>
<p>^ I have a feeling I’m in the same boat, Flintlock. :D</p>
<p>A book about a time-traveling professor who tries to change the past and fails, but then learns that his world (revealed to be a computer simulation) is in danger of being shut down, and has to save it, is probably not their cup of tea. </p>
<p>I hope for both our sakes they likes themselves a little sci-fi.</p>
<p>Editors and such stick to deadlines. My guess based on what Kailey wrote is that the winner has already been notified at the end of April and we’re all just hoping for a certificate of merit/honorable mention. But hey, I’ll take it…</p>
<p>I found this site trying to see if they’d posted the winners (dang), and for those who are saying the winner must have already been chosen, I’m still holding out hope. Last year I got a silver medal, and I didn’t find out until May 19. They didn’t email or call; I got a letter. Who knows, maybe we were all so awesome that they are having trouble making a decision :-D</p>
<p>Haha! You are a godsend! Take that, you masochists VioletButterfly and schoolwannabe! Heh heh. Just kidding. </p>
<p>But that right there proves that the dates at which people are informed is either very varied or may in effect be later in May in fact! In fact, when I asked when we here may be informed of the winners, they did de facto say May, NOT April 30th, heh heh.</p>
<p>By the way, as I said before, my story is metafiction. It does perhaps have elements of sci-fi, but they’re not used to the extent at which it is most often applied. </p>
<p>The main character is a troubled teen who happens to be reading the same book the reader is reading. He meets this girl Janet at the beginning of the school year and thereafter can’t keep her out of his head. While this may, for some folks, seem like love, it isn’t. After which, the story cluster moves to the othe main character who happens to be the same girl Trey can’t keep out of his head. Thing is, the events she beholds aren’t the exact ones Trey does . . . in Trey’s cluster, Janet’s a happy Senior, and Trey a quiet one. In Janet’s, Trey is a happy Senior and Janet a quiet one. The narrator’s also dealing with memory loss, can’t remember his own name, can’t remember where he falls asleep everytime, doesn’t know why he’s telling the story, and is struggling with the fact that he’s fictive (he goes into nihilistic tantrums over it). So the whole thing is told in three clusters: Trey’s, Janet’s, in both of which the events are paradoxical, and the Narrator’s (who tends to sometimes call himself Nihilio).</p>
<p>It’s kind of wacky. I wouldn’t say science fiction.</p>
<p>If youse want to check out something I’ve been influenced in with this, check out Italo Calvino’s book “If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler”…</p>
<p>That’d be terrible if Push was only limited to publishing works alligned with those it’s already published. There has to be some variety somewhere, miright?</p>
<p>Thanks, Alivia. That gives me a little hope. Although my novel isn’t quite what they market, either. Everyone seems to be talking about their general concept, so I’ll come clean on mine, too.</p>
<p>It’s a science fiction story centering around an alien occupation of a small northern New York state town. It’s low on action and even on advanced technology and mostly character-driven, but it’s my baby. It’s written in present tense first person, like an inner monologue that occasionally gets interrupted by other characters, and the narrator is a seventeen year old named Jamie whose guardian voluntarily takes in one of the aliens when she gets a job on security detail in the newly overtaken town. </p>
<p>Looks like we have a veritable sci-fi club over here! I really do hope they’re receptive to all genres, for all our sakes, as was said before =P</p>
<p>I’m nervous too! I keep holding out hope that it’ll be Push whenever I answer the phone, and then it turns out to be my grandma or the Shriners. There definitely is a lot of sci-fi love going on in this thread–I’m kinda jealous. My mind does not produce cool sci-fi concepts, but I love reading it. Any realistic fic authors out there?</p>
<p>Agree, yes at this point after so much waiting, I just want someone who has agonized in this group along with me to win. No, I don’t know anything. This was my first entry and I really scraped together the 15 pages, so I’m not expecting to win…it would be nice to get some recognition. Novels are a stretch, I’m more short story. I did get a national silver and a national gold my first time out of the gate, so I am considering myself fortunate overall. Good Luck to all! Whomever does win, please take my questions on your blog for those of us who will try again next year!</p>
There definitely is a lot of sci-fi love going on in this thread–I’m kinda jealous. My mind does not produce cool sci-fi concepts, but I love reading it. Any realistic fic authors out there?</p>