Owl Canyon Hackathon Contest is Currently Open/ How to Apply (Prize: $3500)

Owl Canyon Hackathon Contest is now open! Deadline is September 2nd, 2023!

Owl Canyon Press Hackathon Contest provides paragraphs #1 and paragraphs #50A and #50B for the alternative endings (the image below shows this), and the writer team creates the other 48 paragraphs (i.e., paragraphs 2-49) to complete the story.

Therefore, Writing teams (2 authors per team) are invited to create and submit a pair of short stories consisting of 50 paragraphs. The contest provides the 1st paragraph and two alternate 50th paragraphs with writing team co-authors taking turns writing a common/shared story from paragraphs 2 through 49 (thus the tag-team handle) and then spinning off two versions using the two alternative 50th paragraphs.

Eligibility for Owl Canyon Hackathon Contest

• Anyone can submit a story (as long as they’re part of a two-writer team), including outside the USA, but the stories must be in English
• Entry is free

Submission Guidelines 

• 50 Paragraphs total – the opening paragraph and 2 alternate ending paragraphs are provided on the Submittable entry form
• No maximum word count, but each paragraph needs to be at least 50 words; however, feel free to use as many words as you need to tell the story
• Dialogue is fine as long as it’s in a paragraph of at least 50 words
• Author teams retain all rights to their short stories
• Author teams agree to permit Owl Canyon Press to publish their stories in an Anthology
• Failure to comply with any contest guidelines may result in disqualification
• Deadline is September 2nd, 2023.
• Winners will be notified in December 2023.
• Apply to the submittable! 

Prize

• First prize is $2000,
• 2nd prize is $1000,
• 3rd prize is $500
• More so, the winning short stories would be published in a short story anthology, as well as an invitation to give a public reading at Inkberry Books in Niwot, CO. The twenty-four (24) Finalists will also have their short stories included in this anthology.