Bloglander

Tick tock, folks. Less than five days remain to get your short stories in for the Inlander 2013 Short Fiction Contest. Make sure you've got your i's dotted and t's crossed and get those entries emailed in by 11:59 pm this Friday.

The clock is ticking.

If you need a reminder, the theme for this year's contest is "Bridges," as narrowly or widely interpreted as the writer wishes. Keep your stories shorter than 2,000 words. But feel free to submit more than one entry.

Email your stories to [email protected]. Put "Fiction Contest Entry" in the subject line to help me keep track of them.

Please only submit original stories that have not been previously published elsewhere. We will print our favorite stories in our Dec. 26 fiction issue.

Good luck. We can't wait to read what you come up with. 

We have posted additional details and previous winners over here. For some inspiration, check out a list of the top-10 literary bridges.

While on the lookout for bridge-related gems, we noticed this amazingly bad bit of narration from the old mid-90s good Samaritan drama, Early Edition. The main character, Gary Hobson, goes around saving people with help from tomorrow's newspaper headlines and a magic cat.

But after talking a woman down from a bridge, we get this insightful social analysis from show sidekick Chuck Fishman:

"There are lots of bridges in this city. Bridges that span over the river, that take you from one place to another. There are other bridges though, ones we need to cross in order to bring us together as a city, as a community. But the hardest bridge to cross is the one that opens your heart, the one that leads you home."

We know you can do better than that. But if you want to enjoy the full effect, the narration starts at the 3:20 mark.