Pssst…here’s what I’m looking to feature at Stories in the Springtime
Read this if you’re interested in submitting a story but maybe you don’t know what exactly it means when I say that I’m looking for a shorter story or a longer story about growth born through struggle? That’s totally fine—keep reading to find out!
I’m being format agnostic when I say “story”
It can be a poem, it can be narrative nonfiction, it can be anything with a beginning, end, and a journey of marked change in the meaty middle. The point is to talk about the gritty parts where you (or your character) has to reckon with something to reach the other side. You could just as equally convey that through a short story as a narrative-driven poem—as long as you clearly share a story of growth through struggle, submit it!
There’s no specific definition of growth
If you want to get really spicy, you could submit a story of neutral (or ambiguous) growth, the only type of growth I will not consider is that towards hatred or bigotry. We don’t need another example.
For this event, growth could fall into many categories: personal, social, mental, spiritual, etc. Basically, as long as you (or your character) do not land at the exact same place that they were at the start, we count that as growth!
There’s no specific definition of struggle, either
Maybe the struggle is internal, or familial, or psychic—there’s tons of ways to interpret this, too! I want to see stories and narratives that highlight that thing within us that pushes us forward when things are hard. Given the timing of this event (springtime), consider the struggle of a plant bursting through the soil: it must, but it isn’t the easiest thing!
Without tension, there is no story. Bring on the tension!