Every month this summer put your writing skills to the test with our short story writing competition! Every month will be a new creative writing prompt. Contest closes the 3rd Friday of each month. Winners will be announced the following week.
August’s Writing Prompt (Closes August 20)
Choose one or do all three!
Prompt 1: Take a book well known and write an alternate ending
Prompt 2: Write about two strangers who each grab one end of the same record at a
second hand vinyl shop
Prompt 3: Write about a group of truckers who all frequent the same truck stop and form
a book club for when they see each other again.
Drop your submissions off at the Public Library for Union County or email them to contest@publibuc.org by Friday, August 20.
July’s winner: Linette Taylor – “Where the Wild Things Are”
I live where the wild things are.
Every time I look their way, they bare a dozen sharp white teeth. They move across the ground on four limbs that seem to grow with every passing day. And no matter how I try, there’s nothing I can do to block out their cries that are like sirens: loud, shrill, persistent. They keep me awake each night, tangled up in fear and restlessness.
Goo always seems to be leaking out of every orifice, green and yellow and brown and foul-smelling. I fear what will happen if I let it touch me, so I keep my distance. But on some days, I have no choice but to get close.
Every morning, I am able to leave for eight hours that pass far too quickly. But after a long day, it is now time for me to return home. To where the wild things are.
I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath. You can do this, I remind myself. You can survive.
I know that if I stay paralyzed here for a moment longer, I’ll never enter. With a silent prayer and every ounce of courage in me, I place my hand on the doorknob and twist.
“There you are, honey!” my wife says when I enter. She has one almost-toddler hugged to each of her hips. “Time for the twins to take their bath.”
