The manipulation of memory has been a point of inspiration for a number of literary works, resulting in iconic fictional elements such as the memory implants in Philip K. Dick’s 1966 story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” the mind-wiping in Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity (Bantam, 1980), and the memory downloads and uploads in George Saunders’s 1992 story “Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz.” In Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police (Pantheon, 2019), translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder, the authoritarian government of an unnamed island eradicates commonplace objects—hats, ribbons, birds, roses—and subsequently attempts to erase all memories associated with the objects. Write a short story that imagines a world in which memories can be manipulated by choice or by force, by individuals or by powerful governments. What are the rules? How are the emotional trajectories of your characters disrupted when certain memories are altered?
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.