Fiction International, a California-based journal emphasizing both literary innovation and progressive politics, has pushed its June 1 contest deadline to August 31. Through the remainder of the summer, the magazine is accepting submissions of short stories on the theme of "Blackness" for a one-thousand-dollar prize, and all entries will be considered for publication.
According to contest coordinator Joel Cox, the theme is "deliberately elastic," encompassing, for instance, "skin; sleep; death; meditation; apocalypse; birds falling from the sky, blanketing the sun; love unloved; the obverse of white."
"Contestants can take 'Blackness' wherever they choose," Cox says. The editors, including final judge Harold Jaffe, "will cede to them."
In the video below, Jaffe presents one of his latest texts, Anti-Twitter: 150 50-Word Stories (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2010) at Google's San Francisco office.