Month: May 2012

Week 22 Flash Fiction Challenge: Search Party

Photo by K.S. Brooks

Winter is nipping at the heels of fall. The air is cold and crisp. Squirrels cavort among the denuded stands of oak, ash, hickory, and maple trees.

The small covered bridge allows a narrow paved road to traverse a placid stream. In the distance, crows caw at some disturbance.

Your character is part of a search party looking for some missing campers. He walks out on the end of the little pier hoping not to find a body…

In 250 words or less, tell me a story incorporating the elements in the picture. The 250 word limit will be strictly enforced.

Please keep language and subject matter to a PG-13 level. Continue reading “Week 22 Flash Fiction Challenge: Search Party”

Indies Unlimited adds Chris James to the Lineup

Author Chris James

I’m very pleased to announce that Chris James is joining the staff of Indies Unlimited as a contributor. Chris has an erudite writing style and a sharp dry British wit. Those qualities in combination with a full head of hair are bound to make him a standout here at Indies Unlimited.

He is 6′ 4″ tall and is left-handed, which is more problematic than it sounds, as all our uniforms are right handed.

Though originally from The U.K., Chris now lives in Warsaw, Poland, with his wife and three children. He published his first novel in 2010, a futuristic court-room thriller called Class Action, and his second in 2011, called The Second Internet Café, Part 1: The Dimension Researcher, which takes the sub-genre of Alternative Realities to its logical conclusion. He is currently writing the second part of The Second Internet Café trilogy and, for light relief, likes to have a go at writing comedy.

Please give Chris James a warm welcome to the Indies Unlimited Army.*

 

*The Indies Unlimited Army is a lot like the KISS Army, except we are about writing rather than music and less than half of us wear makeup (as far as you know).

Landfall Essay Competition – New Zealand

The Landfall Essay Competition, sponsored by Otago University Press, is now accepting submissions. The purpose of the competition is to encourage New Zealand writers to think aloud about New Zealand culture, and to revive and sustain the tradition of vivid, contentious and creative essay writing.

Entries for the 10th Landfall Essay Competition (2012) will be accepted from 1 May 2012. The closing date for receipt of entries is 5 pm 31 July 2012. The winning entry/ies will be published in the November 2012 issue of Landfall.

The winner will receive $3000 and a year’s subscription to Landfall.

For more information, please visit their website.

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Indies Unlimited is pleased to provide this contest information for the convenience of our readers. We do not, however, endorse this or any contest/competition. Entrants should always research a competition prior to entering.[subscribe2]

Well Defined? Nevermind.

Is this heaven? No, it’s Nirvana.

Writers. We write. And our tools are words. So, while contemplating this week’s blog post, I had the brilliant idea of writing about words and their definitions, using… words and their definitions. It’s almost perfect. If by “perfect” I mean “utterly confusing and almost entirely pointless.” So, anyway, a couple years ago, The New York Times compiled a list of the 50 words most likely to stump their own readers. Amazingly, “defenestrate” was not among them (if it had been, I would have defined it as “To demonstrate a specialty fencing technique often used to remove the fins of albacore tuna”). Unhelpfully, perhaps, they neglected to include definitions. Which is where I come in. Don’t get me wrong—this being the internet which, like nature, abhors a vacuum—somebody already came along and performed this admirable service, but I’m going to go one better. I will proceed to pick 13 of the 50 words, more or less at random, and provide not one but two definitions, one of which is the correct one and one which I made up out of whole cloth for no other reason than to be extremely annoying. And if you’re just as bored as me (woah, Cobain flash), you can follow along and expose me for the consummate liar I am. And since I’m also most likely stealing this whole idea from a board game or something, I’m a liar and a thief (lookit, another Cobain flash). Continue reading “Well Defined? Nevermind.”