Calling all my MFA colleagues-have you tried this site? Found it helpful? I’m curious about your feedback to this interesting idea.
The Literary Blockbuster Challenge
Do you have a novel that explores the eternal philosophical questions and grabs and holds the reader’s attention from the first page? Can you produce a book that merges Moby Dick’s metaphysics with the action of Jaws? Have you written a book that can replicate the emotional depth of The Scarlet Letter and inspire the record profits of Valley of the Dolls? Or a book that joins the psycho-sociological themes of Mrs. Dalloway with the page-turning suspense of The Godfather? How about merging James Joyce’s psychologically complex characterization with a Stephen King plot?
We are excited to announce Inkubate’s first annual fiction contest, the Literary Blockbuster Challenge. Take our challenge: write a thought-provoking literary novel that’s also a page-turner. We invite you to combine the goals of serious literature (thematic depth and high level craft) with the bestselling formulas of the mega-blockbusters (see James Hall’s new book, Hit lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century’s Biggest Bestsellers) and commercial genres (romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, horror, fantasy, etc.). For many of you this may mean revising an existing project.
- First Prize: $5000
- Second Prize: $2500
- Third Prize: $1000
- Seven Honorable Mentions: $250
Eligibility: any writer who completes his or her profile and submits at least one literary work to Inkubate is eligible to enter the contest.
Guidelines for Submission: the entry must be an original unpublished or self-published novel, which is uploaded to Inkubate as a novel under the Fiction format and flagged as an entry for the contest.
Deadline: contestants must flag novels they wish to submit by March 31, 2013.
Long List: the long list of 30 to 35 finalists will be announced by Inkubate on May 31, 2013.
The Final Competition: the manuscripts of the 30-35 finalists will be submitted to the judges June 8, 2013.
Judges:
Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist of A Thousand Acres
James W. Hall, retired Professor of Creative Writing at Florida International University, best-selling writer of “literary mysteries,” and the author of the newly released Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century’s Biggest Bestsellers (April 2012)
Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and How to Write a Mystery
Jennifer Clement, prize-winning novelist and poet and president of PEN Mexico
Martha Frankel, author of Hats and Eyeglasses and Executive Director of the Woodstock Writers Festival
Winners: the top ten winners will be announced by Inkubate on July 31, 2013.