The Broken Mirror Story Event
Between April 1st and April 30th, 2009, write a short story based on the following premise:
SOMEONE ARRIVES IN TOWN AND DISCOVERS THAT EVERYONE THERE IS EXACTLY THE SAME.
This story can be any genre and of any length. However, our podcast usually buys Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy stories, and we prefer stories longer than five hundred words.
A couple of rules:
- No multiple submissions, please. If you have more than one take on this idea, only send us the one you feel is best.
- Seriously, write the story in April, based on the idea we’ve presented. You can always rewrite an old story and present it as though it’s new, but if you do this, at least have the decency to lie about it.
- In the subject line of your email, mention that this is for the Broken Mirror Story Event (or the BMSE/BME).
- Even though the event ends on May 1st, we would rather get a complete, proofread story a couple of days late than a rushed story with typos and errors on April 29th.
Send the completed story in the body of an email to submissions(at)dunesteef.com (replacing the “at” with @. Thanks for participating and being a creative person (even if you own a dog)!
The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine 
April 14, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I didn’t think I’d be able to write a story for this event, but on the way home today, I heard a Mike Doughty song (former lead singer of Soul Coughing) that inspired me. 5000 words and 2.5 hours later, I’ve got a first draft of what I think, even if it doesn’t get chosen as a winner, has the potential to be salable. So, thanks for the impetus. I hope you guys like the story.
April 15, 2009 at 7:56 am
Nice work, Listener, 2.5 hours, huh? Inspiration! You must have been making out with a muse.
BTW, I love Soul Coughing, they are one of my favorite bands from the ’90s. Good choice.
April 17, 2009 at 3:23 pm
The good news, I have the perfect story! The bad new, I wrote/sold it several years ago.
April 18, 2009 at 6:59 am
I spent a week and a half just thinking about how this story would go. I had a couple of ideas that just didn’t want to die. In the end I killed them and did something else instead. I wrote about 1800 words in an hour or two last week.
I’m happy with the process and the idea. The story actually had a bigger ‘big idea,’ but getting the it to that point would have been excruciating for author and reader alike. So I found a convenient place to stop, and did so.
Off for a final edit…
April 18, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Due to no fault of our own, we haven’t been able to get an episode uploaded this week. I do want to say, though, that I’ve been blown away (like the-first-time-you-see-Salma-Hayek-in-DESPERADO-level blown away) that we’ve had such a positive reaction to this story “contest.” We’ve actually had submissions already.
I’m not sure how we’ll present them when we’ve gotten them all sorted out, but I really appreciate that people are sending us stories.
Send us donations too, and we’ll have money to buy them all with!
April 30, 2009 at 9:45 am
WOOT!
I can’t believe I got it in on time.