Mary Mackey Short Story Prize Category
1st Prize: $100…. 2nd Prize: $50…. Third Prize:…. $25
Category Details
Up to 4,000 words. One story per entry. I am looking for well-crafted stories that are original and compelling. The story must demonstrate a mastery of and love for the English language. It must move, not wallow. The characters need to be vivid, the dialogue convincing. Above all, something must happen. This need not be a grand event, but some change must take place: an event, a revelation, or perhaps an insight. Please do not submit your story until you have polished and revised it multiple times. A great short story changes the reader. I look forward to being changed.
About Judge/Sponsor
MARY MACKEY (Berkeley/Sacramento, CA) Her published works consist of fourteen novels, including The Village of Bones, The Year the Horses Came, and The Widow’s War (San Francisco Chronicle bestseller); and seven books of poetry including Sugar Zone, which won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. Mackey’s books have sold over a million and a half copies and been translated into twelve foreign languages including Japanese, Hebrew, Russian, and Finnish. Four times her poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. A screenwriter as well as a novelist and part of the Mackey/DePalma script writing team, she has sold feature scripts to Warner Brothers as well as to various independent film companies. She occasionally writes comedy under the pen name Kate Clemens.
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Last Year’s Winners (2018)
First Prize: Jackie Davis Martin of San Francisco, CA for “Tevye, One Afternoon”
Second Prize: Katharyn Howd Machan of Ithaca, NY for “Gino’s”
Third Prize: Mark Ford of Delray Beach, FL for “Dreaming of Tigers”
Honorable Mentions: Judith Janoo of East Burke, VT for “Tala’s Garden”; Luther Kirk of Chesterfield, VA for “Pearly Gates”; Marsha Porter of Sacramento, CA for “The Messenger”; Laura Fanning of Alameda, CA for “Animal Kingdom”