A fatal miscalculation during bingo.
A match made over bingo.
A match only dreamed of during bingo.
Rekindling an old flame over bingo.
A double suicide after bingo.
Bingo as a way to chase away the blues.
Bingo as a financial necessity.
Bingo at Moochie’s in Miami as a front for a high-stakes poker game among mob bosses.
All of the above showed up in short stories inspired by one of three photo prompts offered for Round 5 of the 12th annual Florida Weekly Writing Challenge. The picture — showing an array of bingo cards on a fancy casino table — inspired more than half of all the Round 5 entries. Who knew bingo could be so creatively stimulating?
This week starts Round 6 of the challenge that asks readers to write short stories prompted by photos selected by our editors. We can hardly wait to read what comes in next. Here’s how it works:
For Round 6, you have until 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21, to send us your original story using one of the photographs shown here as your jumping-off point. That’s right: You must choose one of the three and submit only one story. This is different from how the challenge has worked in previous years.
Keep your entry to a maximum of 750 words, please; there is no minimum word count. And no poetry, thank you.
Run your story through Spellcheck.
Put your first and last name, email address, phone number, and city/state of residence at the top. Then give a brief description of the photo that inspired your story (for example, “gallery gazing,” “pilings,” and “rainy day swim” are good for Round 6’s offerings).
After the above information, center a title at the top of your masterpiece.
Then email it, either attached as a Word document or simply pasted into the message area, to cpierce@floridaweekly.com. Do not send a PDF, a text file, Pages file, or anything in any format other than Word; if you do not work in Word, just copy/paste your story into the body of your email. Do not embed any images in your entry.
This is important: Put the words WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line of your email. You will receive acknowledgment of receipt within a day or two.
Snail mail offerings cannot be considered.
Questions? Email cpierce@floridaweekly.com. We’ll get back to you.
Round 7 and beyond
We’ll print three new photo prompts for Round 7 on Aug. 24-25, and you’ll have until 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, to send us another story — just one. And so on, with new prompts every two weeks, for a total of nine rounds this year. The deadline for entering Round 9 will be Sunday, Oct. 2. Enter as many rounds as your creativity, time and discipline allow, but only one story per round.
The 2022 Writing Challenge winner and three honorable mentions will be notified by Oct. 10, with the first-place winner having the choice of tuition to the in-person Sanibel Island Writers Conference (set for Nov. 3-6) or to an online Gotham Writers Workshop. Honorable mentions will receive Amazon gift cards.
We’ll publish the top four stories in our Oct. 26-27 editions (winning writers will be interviewed for an article to accompany the publication of their stories). Our fifth- through 10th-place picks will be published as space permits in the weeks following.
So read the rules again, study the photo prompt for Round 1 and then tap into your creative juices. Just remember: The deadline for Round 6 is 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21. We look forward to hearing from you. ¦
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