Symphony Space

2008 Selected Shorts Writing Contest

Selected Shorts

The 2008 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize
with guest judge Amy Hempel

The winning submission, selected by Amy Hempel, will be read as part of the Selected Shorts performance at Symphony Space on May 21, 2008. The story will be recorded for possible later broadcast as part of the public radio series. The winner will receive $1000.

Story requirements

Submit a single short story that addresses the question or the general theme, Are We There Yet? You may interpret this question however you please. Note that the other stories in the Selected Shorts program on May 21, 2008 are all stories that take place in transit - in cars on road trips, on planes and trains, or walking from one place to another - but we also welcome submissions that use the theme of the evening, "are we there yet?," as a diving board into other literary territory.
Your story must have a title.
Make sure your name and contact information appear on the first page of your story. If you are submitting by email, this information needs to appear on the first page of the attached Word document. Include page numbers.
Your story must be no more than 4 double-spaced typed pages in length (we recommend 12 pt, Times New Roman font).
Employees of Symphony Space (and their relatives) are excluded from entering.

Deadline
All submissions must be received by March 14, 2008. To be specific, email submissions must be received by 5pm Eastern Standard Time. Mailed submissions must arrive with the day's mail.

Where to submit your story
Email your submission as a Word attachment, with "CONTEST" in the subject line of the email, to shorts@symphonyspace.org.

Mail to
CONTEST, Selected Shorts
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway
New York, NY 10025.

Please do not send duplicate copies (email or snail-mail is sufficient). We cannot allow revisions to your story once we have received it. Due to the high volume of submissions and the small size of our office, we will not be able to notify you when we receive your story. The winner will be selected by Amy Hempel and notified by mid-May. As soon as the winner is selected, his or her name will be posted to this page.

Note
Contestants who submit by email or provide their email address will be added to the Selected Shorts email list - please let us know if you do not wish to receive email about upcoming programs.

The Prize
$1000 and two tickets to the May 21st closing night of the Selected Shorts series at Symphony Space, when the prizewinning story will be read.

About this year's guest judge

Amy Hempel is the author of four collections of short stories: Reasons To Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Tumble Home and The Dog of the Marriage. Her fiction has appeared in Harper's, Vanity Fair, GQ and The Yale Review and has been included in The Best American Short Stories and The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has also served as a judge for the National Book Award, The PEN/Revson Award, The PEN/Hemingway Award and the Mary McCarthy Prize. Her first published story, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried," has been translated into 18 languages. Her most recent publication is The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel. She is currently a faculty member in the graduate writing programs of Bennington College and The New School University.