Winners of the Choc Lit Short Story Comp

When lovely Choc Lit asked me and Margaret James to judge the Choc Lit  Short Story Competition, I had no idea it would make me so hungry.

Every story had to be about chocolate. It’s possible to write a story in just about any genre, on that subject, as we soon discovered. Love stories predominated, but we had crime, paranormal, thriller, horror, the lot. There was every kind of chocolate, too! I love chocolate and reading about it for three days was a special kind of torture.

I believe there were over 130 entries – it certainly took me a while to read my half of the list – so those on the shortlist did brilliantly.

To rise to the top of that list is an amazing achievement and my congratulations go to Lucy Mouland and Laura E James, winner and runner-up. Your stories are truly fabby. I hope you both found adequate ways of celebrating your success.

Lucy’s winning story can be read here.

And watch our for Choc Lit ‘s new short story competition, to be announced soon. You can win chocolate! (Oh, and money.)

Interested in a new short story market?

Alfie Dog Limited

With markets for short stories decreasing,  a  new paid market must be welcome news to short story writers. Alfie Dog Limited is creating a paid digital download service for short stories. The site will carry formats suitable for Kindle, Kobu, Sony E-reader, i-pad and other Apple products as well as a printable version to read on computer or paper, offering a unique market to bring short story writers and readers together.

All submissions will be read. Stories should be a consistently high standard, ‘worth the buyer reading’ and written in English. You can find information about submissions at Alfie Dog Limited.

This is a paid market: 39p – 59p will be charged per download, depending on story length, and 99p for a collection of 5-10 stories. Half of this (after the transaction cost) will go to the author. Payment for the downloads will be through Paypal and allows a single download to take place.

Submissions are now open for a launch date of Wednesday 16th May 2012.