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9th Annual Dialogue Contest Winners

1st Prize - Colin's Monologue: Two Scorching-Arsed Summers by Julia Anderson ($525)

2nd Prize - Playing God by Drew Dunlop ($175)

3rd Prize - Do you feel lucky, punk? by Robert Walton ($87.50)

4th Prize - All Sports Radio by Roy Cover ($48.75)

5th Prize - An Easy, Casual Chat About Nothing by Lazar Trubman ($38.75)

Thank you to everyone who entered. We had a blast reviving the dialogue contest, and we look forward to bringing it back next summer.

9th Annual Dialogue Only Rules and Guidelines

The Rules: Compose a short story entirely of dialogue. You may use as many characters as you want. Your entry must be under 2000 words. Your entry does not have to follow standard rules for writing dialogue. Your entry cannot use any narration (this includes tag lines such as he said, she said, etc.). These are the only rules. Manipulate them however you see fit. Check out past winners and read our tips for writing good dialogue before submitting your entry.

The Winner: The winning entry will be the story that most effectively uses dialogue to deliver a powerful and engaging story as determined by our panel of judges.

Prizes: A minimum of $500 will be awarded, with at least $300 going to the grand prize winner. Our five finalists will also be published on the website. To date we've awarded over $10,000 to our contest finalists including over $2800 during our 8th Annual Contest. For every entry over 50, an additional $5 will be added to the total prize money.

Final 2018 Prize Structure:

1st Prize: $525
2nd Prize: $175
3rd Prize: $87.50
4th Prize: $48.75
5th Prize: $38.75

All prizes will be paid in USD via PayPal within 30 days of the announcement of winners.

Explanation of Prize Structure:

1st Prize: $300 minimum + $3 for every entry over 50
2nd Prize: $100 minimum + $1 for every entry over 50
3rd Prize: $50 minimum + $1 for every two entries over 50
4th Prize: $30 minimum + $1 for every 4 entries over 50
5th Prize: $20 minimum + $1 for every 4 entries over 50

Judges: All finalists will be chosen by the Staff of Bartleby Snopes. Five finalists will be submitted to the final round of voting. The order of winners will be determined by the staff of Bartleby Snopes and our two guest judges. All decisions regarding contest winners are final. Meet our guest judges below.

About Our Guest Judges:

Nancy Stohlman is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Madam Velvet's Cabaret of Oddities (Oct 2018), The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, The Monster Opera, and Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, which was a finalist for a 2011 Colorado Book Award. She is the creator and curator of The Fbomb Flash Fiction Reading Series, the creator of FlashNano in November, and the co-founder of Flash Fiction Retreats. Her work has been published in over 100 journals and anthologies including the Norton anthology New Micro: Very Short Stories and had been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Denver and teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder. Find out more about her at www.nancystohlman.com

Caleb Echterling's New Year's resolution is to write more stories in the 4th person, as soon as he figures out how to break the 5th wall into the 6th dimension. His work has appeared in Jersey Devil Press and Twisted Sister Lit Mag, among others. He tweets funny fiction using the highly original handle @CalebEchterling. You can find more of his writing at www.calebechterling.com.

Entry Fee: $10 for unlimited entries (only one entry allowed at a time; see Response/Notification section for more details). Entry fee is due at time of submission and will be collected through Submittable.

How Entry Fees Are Used: The entry fees are used to fund the prize money and pay for contest advertisements/maintenance. Approximately $1 from each entry pays for required processing fees. Other than this processing fee, all entry fees are used directly for the purpose of the contest or to fund the magazine.

Deadline: Contest entries must be submitted by 9/15/18. If your first submission is rejected, you will receive a private link to submit again. Resubmissions are due by 9/30/18.

Response/Notification: Our contest runs with a rolling rejection process. We will always keep our five favorite stories. You will be notified immediately if your story falls out of the top 5, and you will have the opportunity to resubmit. There is no extra cost for subsequent submissions, but you may only submit one story at a time.

Announcement of winners: Contest winners will be determined by our staff and guest judges by 10/15/18. We will notify winners individually via email and then post an official announcement on our website and social media platforms. All decisions are final once announced.

Rights: All rights revert back to the author after publication.

Submission Guidelines: All entries should be submitted using our Submittable page. Your name, contact information, and word count should appear in a brief cover letter. The title of your document should be the same as the title of your story. All submissions are read blind. Please do not send a bio or include any contact information in your document.

No simultaneous submissions or previously published stories are allowed. If your story is discovered to be simultaneously submitted or previously published, you will become ineligible from competition in the contest and your entry fee will be forfeited.

By submitting, you are stating that you are the sole author of the work and that your submission has not been published before. Work posted on blogs, message boards, personal websites, etc. all is considered previously published material. By submitting you are also agreeing to all contest rules.

Eligibility: This contest is open to anyone who agrees to the terms and conditions of the contest. By submitting to the contest, you confirm that you agree to all of the guidelines stated here and on Submittable. Past participants and winners are encouraged to submit. However, any past or present Bartleby Snopes staff members are not eligible. This restriction does not include past guest judges of the contest.

What we do with your information: When you submit to the contest, your contact information is stored by Submittable. We do not use your contact information for any purposes other than notifying you about the status of your submission. We do not add you to an email list or preserve your contact information anywhere other than Submittable.

Bartleby Snopes reserves the right to cancel the contest and refund all entry fees. We've successfully held this contest 8 out of 8 times and do not intend to cancel for any reason, but we have to put this here for legal reasons.

PAST RESULTS:

Congratulations to the winners of the 8th Annual Dialogue Contest

1st Prize: Haikuzilla by Caleb Echterling ($1,722)
2nd Prize: Pillow Talk at the Water Cooler by Christina Dalcher ($574)
3rd Prize: Two AI Walk Into a Bar by Jessica Riches ($287)
4th Prize: Bad Stock by Tara Campbell by ($148.50)
5th Prize: We're Ready When You Are by Sara Jacobelli ($138.50)

Our five finalists were published in Issue 15 of Bartleby Snopes released in January 2017.

7th Annual Dialogue Contest Results (2015):

1st Place: Boogeyman by Rebecca McDowell - $1161
2nd Place: A Visit with Dr. Wallace by Carolyn Moretti - $387
3rd Place: The Kitchen God by Fred Senese - $193.50
4th Place: Retired by Ronald Friedman - $101.75
5th Place: Is My Long Hair Blocking Your View by Amy Naylor - $91.75

Read all five finalists in the Issue 14 of our semi-annual print and PDF magazine.

Thank you to everyone who participated. A very special thank you to our guest judges, Sorrel Westbrook-Wilson and Bud Smith.

6th Annual Dialogue Contest Results (2014):

1st Place - Slurpie Safari by Sorrel Westbrook-Wilson - $1428
2nd Place - Everyone Smiles by Amy Morris-Jones - $476
3rd Place - Sorry, Was That Pronounced with a Long O or A by Daniel Thompson - $238
4th Place - Where We Go When We're Gone by Gabrielle Hovendon - $124
5th Place - Blue Frosting by Mathangi Subramanian - $114

Read all five finalists in the Issue 13 of our semi-annual print and PDF magazine.

Thank you to everyone who participated. A very special thank you to our guest judges, Ronald Friedman and Ben Tanzer.

5th Annual Dialogue Contest Results (2013):

1st Prize - Night Orderly by Ronald Friedman ($705)
2nd Prize - No Lips by Ben Orlando ($75)
3rd Prize - The Last Bear in Indiana by Robyn Ryle ($60)
4th Prize - Read This Manual Carefully by Rick Hodges ($55)
5th Prize - Oblique by Tom Howard ($50)

Read all five finalists for free by clicking on the image of Bartleby Snopes Issue 11.

A big thank you to our guest judges Heather Nelson (Cease, Cows) and Bonnie ZoBell (What Happened Here).

4th Annual Dialogue Contest: The Results (2012)

Note: The five finalists were published in our 9th issue available free here: Issue 9

1st Place - Open Me by Lee Stoops
2nd Place - On the Mountain by Ted Haynes
3rd Place - Props for Life by Gregory Marlow
4th Place - The Gig by Peter DeMarco
5th Place - ...I'm Sorry? by Joshua Browning


A big thank you to our guest judges Justis Mills (First Stop Fiction) and Matthew Guerruckey (Drunk Monkeys).



3rd Annual Dialogue Contest: The Results (2011)

Note: The six finalists were published in our 7th issue available free here: Issue 7

1st Place - Poem About Writing a Poem by Mark Jordan Manner ($670)
2nd Place - Working it All Out by David Meuel ($65)
3rd Place - This Transfer's Only Good Until 6:28 by Don Hucks ($45)
4th Place - The Little Gymnast by Eirik Gumeny ($40)
5th Place - Clown Adoption by Chad Redden ($35)
6th Place - Therapy by Steve Karas ($10)

A big thank you to our guest judges Ben Loory (Author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day) and Matt Rowan (Untoward Magazine).

2nd Annual Dialogue Contest: The Results (2010)

Note: The five finalists were published in our 5th issue available free here: Issue 5

1st Place - Why Won't You by Annam Manthiram ($875)
2nd Place - Cowboyism by Don Hucks ($50)
3rd Place - Happy Trolls Incorporated by Donna Marinelli ($25)
4th Place - Death in Lou's Coffee Shop by John Domenichini ($15)
5th Place - The Pussy Death by Jason Helmandollar ($15)

A big thank you to our guest judges Kevin Dickinson (Writers' Bloc Magazine) and Rae Bryant (Moon Milk Rview).

1st Annual Dialogue Contest: The Results (2009)

Note: The five finalists were published in our 3rd Issue 

1st Place ($410)- David Williams, "Cooking Chinese"

Guest judge j.a. tyler said "this one was able to get the most complex story out of a mimnum of language, making the conversation resonate from within rather than filling itself with exposition / explanation. It also managed to feel natural and easy, the flow of a conversation as we are known to have them, us when we are not writing."

2nd Place ($10) - Mel Bosworth, "Cash and Coupons"
3rd Place ($10) - CS DeWildt, "A Wager Between Scientists"
4th Place ($10) - R.F. Marazas, "Post-Coital Conversation"
5th Place ($10) - Allen Kopp, "The Clown Who Stole Lady Chatterly's Lover"

Thank you to all who participated. 

Thank you to j.a. tyler from mud luscious press for serving as a guest judge (www.aboutjatyler.com).