The king season got off to a shaky start, but Alaska is now thick with salmon. So many people are grabbing for their share that the state had to do a second run of personal use fishing permits. What better time for our 49 Writers “Ode to a Dead Salmon” Writing Contest?
The idea for the contest comes from our interview with Alaska’s Writer Laureate Nancy Lord, who in response to Andromeda’s question about why it took a while to focus her writing on Alaska said, “I think I was scared off, years ago, by something John Haines wrote in “The Writer as Alaskan”: a kind of condemnation that new-comers to Alaska always mined the same myths, ‘odes to dead salmon,’ and that it would take generations to develop a worthy Alaskan literature. I’d written a few odes to dead salmon and knew that I needed to get beyond the obvious.”
Like Nancy, most of us have probably already written a few “Odes to Dead Salmon.” Here’s your chance to share them with the world (under a pen name, if you like), or to write some – ahem – fresh ones. Here’s what we want: your best tongue-in-cheek “Ode to a Dead Salmon” bad Alaskan writing, poetry or prose, fiction or non. We’ll publish all entries over at www.AlaskanAuthors.com so the world can read them, and we’ll post finalists here at 49 Writers. And yes, we’ll have some theme-appropriate prizes, but the main goal is to have fun.
For examples of the kind of bad poetry and prose we’re looking for, check out the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest (for bad opening lines), Chortler’s Bad Poetry Contest, and the Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry Contest.
The rules:
1. Entries must conform to our editorial policy.
2. We need your real name and real email address. If you want your post to be under a Blogger name or other pseudonym, make that clear in your entry.
3. No more than three entries per person.
4. No more than 800 words per entry (shorter is just fine with us: limerick, haiku, opening lines).
5. Entries must be your own original work.
6. You keep the copyright, of course, but by entering you’re giving us permission to post.
7. This is our contest. We make the rules (that’s the beauty of blogging, folks), and the rules may change as we see fit. We’ll let you know if they do.
8. All entries must be emailed to debv@gci.net by midnight on August 15.