Glimmer Train. Deadline: June 30.

Upcoming deadline:

• Fiction Open. First place: $2,500 and publication in Glimmer Train. Deadline: June 30. (NOTE: The grace period for the Short Story Award for New Writers has been extended to 6/10 since there was a technical hangup yesterday, for which we apologize!)
• Open to all writers. Any story that has not appeared, nor is scheduled to appear, in a print publication is welcome.
• Winners and finalists will be announced in the September 1 bulletin, and contacted directly one week earlier.
• Writing Guidelines
• Do not be afraid to tell the truth. The reader will understand the risk you've taken, and be appreciative. And you will grow as a writer and a person.—Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, interviewed by Teresa Burns Gunther

Melissa R. Sipin, a writer from Carson,California, recent winner  wrote.

'And that is how I start all my stories—with an image, a thought, a visual, a haunting. I start them like poems. I begin with a phrase, a saying, a moment, anything that has permeated my mind and has stayed with me, left me breathless, confused, and wanting more.

For me, that's the hardest part. To begin a story with something that has lingered within for a long, long time, something that has possessed me, and to end the story with that obsession, with something that instead lingers with you, the reader.'

Read the rest of her esssay on Glimmer Train website.'