The The NSW Writers' Centre

Short Story Round Up

Short stories are a great way for writers to get published, build aCV and hone your craft. Given how difficult it can be to break into mainstream publishing the short story would seem an essential part of your writers toolkit. Literary journals are a great place to start and there are many specialist magazines catering to different genres.

Held once a year by the centre for a month, the Short Story Round Up aims to provide you with constructive criticism, which will then help you edit your short story to the best quality before sending it out to magazines and literary journals.

The Short Story Round up will return mid year in 2013. Read below for some more background about it from last years FAQ. if you would like to be alerted when it opens again please email here

How long should my story be?The readers will read up to 1500 words of any story.  If your story is longer than this it might be useful to provide a two line description of what the rest of the story is about (please limit this paragraph to 50 words).

What will I get out of sending my short story in? The readers will write two pages of feedback to your story – covering style, structure and themes. The assessment may go into character development, point of view, language, pacing and readership depending on your story. The idea is to get a close reading with suggestions to improve your work before sending it out to the world. The readers will then be able to suggest places for you to submit your story for publication or suitable competitions to enter.

Who will be reading the short stories? The short stories will be subject to a blind assessment – this means that the assessor is chosen for you at random and you will not have direct contact with the assessor, much like what happens when sending your work in to a literary journal.

The assessors all have experience in producing literary journals and publishing short stories in Australia, editing fiction for magazines such as Overland, Heat, Seizure, The Lifted Brow and Page Seventeen. If you are interested in reading more about our assessors go here [link – I imagine we will be able to do some sort of write up of the assessors on the blog if it is up and running].

The NSW Writers’ Centre Short Story Round Up will return later in 2012.