The SleuthFest Short Story Contest is now a yearly event. All registrants for SleuthFest 2012 who are unpublished are invited to submit a short story. The winning story will be published in the SleuthFest 2012 program and, in addition, the winner will be given free conference registration for SleuthFest 2013.
 

Click to read Linda's winning story, "Snakebit and Sunburned."
 

Past winners:
2010 – Elaine Togneri, "The Red-Headed League"

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Set-Up

Your story must assume the following facts: It is Thursday, March 1, 2012 and you are staying at (or just arriving at) the Royal Plaza Hotel, the venue for SleuthFest 2012, which (for purposes of this contest) is right in the middle of The Magic Kingdom®. A child (yours or one the random million kids in the immediate area) asks for your help. He (she) has spotted a pair of Mickey Mouse ears in a bush (Under a tree? Someplace more clever?) but is having trouble pulling them loose. (For those of you who have avoided all popular culture references, Mickey Mouse ears consist of a black beanie with two large black plastic mouse ears attached.) You help and find the problem is that a head, but only the head, is still attached to the ears.

General Guidelines

Deadline
Deadline for submission is December 20, 2011. Manuscripts must be postmarked by that date. The reason for this is that we need time to read them and get the winner into the program book.

Notification
Finalists will be notified around February 1, 2012. The winner is announced in the best way possible. You open the SleuthFest 2012 Program and find your story featured for all to see.

Manuscript Guidelines

1. Six copies of each story should be sent to the SleuthFest 2012 Short Story Contest Chair, Bob Williamson, at 1235 NE 96th Street, Miami Shores, FL 33138.
2. Manuscripts must be submitted on paper. E-mail submissions will not be accepted. An electronic version of the selected story will be needed later, but do not send one unless asked to do so.
3. Take mercy on your judges’ tired eyes and use a legible standard font such as Courier or Times New Roman at 12 pt; no fancy fonts or formatting, please. Double space and turn off automatic hyphenation. Indent the first line of new paragraphs by five spaces.
4. Print on one side of the paper only. Make sure the story title and page number is at the top of each page and use at least 1" margins on all sides. Paper clips are okay, but do not bind, staple, fold, or put your story in a folder.
5. On the cover sheet only, put your real name, and on new lines each: your pen name if you use one, your address, phone number, e-mail address, and word count (2500 or less) for the story. We need only ONE cover sheet. Judges do not know the names of the people submitting stories.
6. At the middle of the first page of the story, type the full story title in CAPS, go down two lines and begin the story on the next line:

(Example)

A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

It was a dark and stormy night….

7. At the end of your story, type END or ###.
8. Mail the six copies of the manuscript in an envelope marked "SleuthFest 2012.”
9. The contest is open to SleuthFest 2012 participants only. You must be registered because we introduce the winner at the Friday lunch.