Every month, March through October, I present Screen Shorts to a live audience on Zoom. This lit night is a curated collection of 5-minute stories written and read to you by members of To Live & Write in Alameda who are not local or cannot make it to the in-person event, Alameda Shorts, at Books, Inc.
If you are a local writer or you’re not local but you can make it to our little island city on the second Thursday of the month to read your piece, check out our in-person lit night, Alameda Shorts.
You do not have to live Alameda be a member of To Live & Write in Alameda, but you do have to be a member to participate in Screen Shorts.
Screen Shorts features the same prompts, submission guidelines, and judges assigned to Alameda Shorts. The only difference is that Screen Shorts happens on Zoom. The audience is live, the butterflies feel real, and the vibe is the same: Story Time for Grown Ups.
If anything is better about Screen Shorts, it’s that you can wear your jammies, sit in the best spot on the couch, and bring the good snacks – instead of having to dress up to go out, find parking (pretty easy in Alameda, actually), and make small talk before we start.
Here’s how it works:
If you’re thinking abut submitting for Screen Shorts, here’s how it works:
- On the first of the month, I drop the theme.
- You get the full month to write a short story or personal narrative (no poetry) that can be read out loud in five minutes or less (emphasis on the less).
- You submit your piece and wait about a week to find out if the anonymous panel of readers has selected your piece to be read on Screen Shorts.
- On the third Thursday of the following month, we present Screen Shorts to a live online audience.
Submission guidelines:
- Theme: Weather or Whether (you choose)
- Deadline: Midnight, May 31, 2024
- Event: 700pm Thursday, June 20, 2024
- Length: Five minutes (800-1000 words, depending on how dense your writing is)
- Format: Word document attached to an email
- Font: Times New Roman, 12pt.
- File Name: Screen Shorts – Your Name – Theme
- Submit to: [email protected]
- Subject line: Screen Shorts – Your Name – Theme
- REMEMBER: Type your name inside your document, above the title. I will keep the copy with your name for my purposes and remove it from the copy I send to the judges. Do not embed your name, turn it into a watermark, or do anything else that prevents its removal; sending it from your email address to ours is all you need to prove it came from you.
Immediate disqualifiers:
(Take this opportunity to practice being a real writer who follows submission guidelines: check your formatting before sending it in).
- Using Google Docs, Pages, or any format other than Word.
- Using any font that isn’t Times New Roman.
- Ignoring the file name instructions.
- Ignoring the subject line instructions.
- Including the title of your piece in the file name or subject line.
- Forgetting your name anywhere (file name, subject line, in the document).
- Submitting after the deadline.
- Neglecting to write to the theme.
- Not editing your piece down to a 5-minute read.
- Not editing your piece (submitting a rough draft).
REMEMBER: The point of having submission guidelines in place is to give you the opportunity to practice following submission guidelines when it comes to being published. We enforce them for your benefit.
How to guarantee the panel will select your piece:
- You can’t. It’s purely subjective. Submitting an edited, polished piece that pays attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation is a good start.
