Doorknobs & BodyPaint
Guidelines/Contests
For Writers and Artists
Issue #50, May, 2008
Work Issue
Submission deadline: April 10, 2008
Publication date: May, 2008
Send Submissions to: leilarae@iceflow.com
Please note: new email address; use this one only.
Dear Doorknob & BodyPaint Writers,
It is appropriate that we celebrate our work in Issue #50, the work issue, with your work. Issue #50 will be a double issue, so if you have a short-short, which hasn't found a home, send it to us as a submission for the Cairo Room. Or, write and send us more than one submission for the Flash Fiction, Hayward Fault Line, and Dorsal Contests. The summer and fall will continue the celebration with publication parties in October on both coasts--one in Berkeley and one in New York City. In addition, we plan on publishing our first anthology of the best short-short stories from issue 1 through 50. So, with this in mind, we send you our latest Call for Submissions.
This issue is dedicated in loving memory to Lester Goldberg. Work. Sometimes, we work because we must. As in times of economic downturns or great depressions. Sometimes, we work because we love it, even when it is subverted or changed by the rules thrust upon it by a boss, or by a company, or government and its policies. Or, sometimes we work in uncertain times like now. At first we don't notice the changes. Then, we begin to feel the pressure, the anxiety, the stress. Slowly, we come to realize that we are not strengthened nor enlightened by the work. We realize that to endure we must obey. And, we cannot. Write a story with the following guides:
Dorsal Contest
Lester Goldberg's stories are deeply focused on the themes of work, earning a living, raising a family, job hunting, unemployment. His stories include a memorable cast of colorful characters: a college dropout who takes a job in a pig slaughterhouse, a factory worker obsessed with the impending deaths of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a middle-aged man whose hospital stay is punctuated with erotic fantasies.From the title story of his short story collection, One More RiverWrite a 450 word or less story about a person who takes drastic measures when unable to continue in a job, but at the same time is emotionally unable to question or challenge the boss.
Just six months out of North Plainfield High School, in the winter of '32 when I hit the road.
Five dollars a week, my old man had promised me for working on the chicken farm. He and I shook hands on it. He never paid out a solitary dime and I saw how things were, just couldn't bring myself to ask him. My father came home from his cutter's job in the garment center in New York, and let's get a move on, he'd say, grab the tool box and we'll fix that fence post before supper.
He'd watch me for a minute, and when the saw bound in the four-by-four, he'd snatch it out of my hand, saying, call yourself a carpenter, you're a shoemaker. In the morning, he'd hammer on my door before six, and I was happier when he went off to work and I could take care of the moldy chickens without his advice.
Those few nights my father couldn't find any extra jobs around the chickens, I'd hustle over to the social center supported by the forty Jewish families in the rural area west of Plainfield; they called themselves the Settlers, mostly cloak and suit union men, one capmaker.
Flash Fiction Contest
1.Maximum length: 250 words.
2.The sub-theme is: Impose.
3.The year is: 1965.
4.Within the story, you must use this text: by breaking things.
Hayward Fault Line Contest
1. Maximum length: 450 words.
2. The sub-theme is: strengthen.
3. The setting is: Singapore.
4. Within the story, you must use this bit of text: yet cannot hold.
Cairo Room
The Cairo Room contains all non-contest and writer's pool selections under 450 words. From the exotic to the post-modern to hypertext to first time writers, this room welcomes you.
General Guidelines:
1. General submission guidelines apply to all stories.
2. When you send your submission by email, please include your name, postal address, and email address at the beginning of each story; paste your story into the body of your email and send it in plain text form.
3. If you send more than one story (three total), send each story as a separate email.
4. This is important. Put the category (FF, HF, DO, CR,), the issue #, and your name on the subject line. (example: FF, 21, Mary Jane Argure) We use a filter for all email; therefore, if you do not put this information in the subject line, your email will automatically go into trash.
5. Do not send your story in HTML format or as an attachment. If you send your story in HTML format or as an attachment, it will discarded. Possibly, some very good stories are not read or chosen because they were sent this way.
6. Send Submissions to: leilarae@iceflow.com
Flash Fiction Prize:
A Publication Party,
and A Reading of the Winning Story.
Hayward Fault Line Prize:
A Publication Party,
A Reading of the Winning Story.
Dorsal Prize:
A Publication Party,
A Reading of the Winning Story.