Paragraph Slam Night
Oh, Cosgrove.
If you've picked up this year's Fiction 101 issue, then you get that joke. You know all about the daring Gaboobles, the hit man who gets paid in Olive Garden gift cards and which companion Dorothy married after easin' on down the Yellow Brick Road. And if you made it to the end, you were probably craving more.
What's that you ask? Is there more? Oh, Cosgrove, we've got eight years worth of these 101-word masterpieces.
We've compiled the best entries from 2003 to 2011 into one awesome, electronic anthology. It's a partnership with Boxfire Press, a small digital publishing house run by former CityBeat contributor Justin McLachlan.
It's available for Nook and Kindle and, soon, for iPhone and iPad. It will cost you a few bucks, but it's a great way to support your local free weekly as we enter the slowest months of our business year.
Here are the links where you can buy and download Fiction 101: The Anthology:
And here's a statement from from Boxfire Press:
Writing great short fiction involves more than putting words to paper, drinking herbal teas and hand-painting Fabergé eggs. It takes spirit and a sense of dedication, creativity, lucidity. In Fiction 101: The Anthology by San Diego CityBeat, you’ll see more deranged minds than lucid ones, but that’s okay. Crazy is the spice of life, it makes our days more tasty.
Here’s how this worked. Every year for almost the last decade, Citybeat asked writers to craft humorous, sad, tragic, scary, heart-warming, silly and abstract stories in just 101 words. It had to be fiction. Poems, diatribes, how-to manuals and ransom notes were all disqualified. Then a top notch, grade-AAA, blue ribbon (“good for nothin’” in the words of Citybeat editor Dave Rolland) panel of judges hand-selected winners to appear in that year’s fiction issue.
Fiction 101: The Anthology, is the best of those stories for the last eight years, covering everything from animals to sex, and sometimes animals and sex? We’re not sure, we were too afraid to read it all so you’ll have to let us know.
Fiction 101 is available now on your Kindle and Nook, and soon your iPad and iPhone. Get your copy! The best part? It’s in 3D. Everyone else was doing stuff in 3D, so we figured this was a bandwagon we had to be on. It’s all about staying relevant.
Enjoy Citybeat’s legacy of Fiction 101, and be sure and let us know what you think. We’re anxiously awaiting your thoughts.
Again those links:
