Wordweavers : Prose 500 2021

This writing could any kind of fiction work. It will have no Winners. It has only two qualifying rounds, Longlist and Featured Writers. Only Featured Writers will be published in an anthology.

Contest Writing

Theme: Only Historical, Political, Literary Fiction will be considered for the contest. Writers will need to include a bibliography and interviews where relevant as part of the research.)

Submission Form (Opens in a new window)

Jan 10, 2021 to June 30, 2021

Prose 500

Submission Form (Opens in a new window)

April 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021

Prose 500 Winners & Featured Writers

Shortlist Declared on July 10, 2021

Longlist Declared on May 30, 2021

Short Fiction

(200-500 words) via email wordweavers.submissions@gmail.com

April 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021

August 1, 2021: Winners and Featured Writers

Shortlist Declared on July 1, 2021

Longlist Declared on May 25, 2021

Drabble

via email wordweavers.submissions@gmail.com

March 1, 2021 March 31, 2021

Drabble Winners & Featured Writers

August 1, 2021: Winners and Featured Writers

Shortlist Declared on July 1, 2021

Longlist declared on May 10th, 2021

Kindly go through the basic spell check routine. You could opt to read out your work to someone in the profession of writing who could offer you some invaluable suggestions.

Please read the following before submitting your work to us.

Submission of your work tells us that you've read this, agree with it, and still want us to publish your work.

Participation is open to all participants across the world.
The Contest is FREE is free for all countries.
Please understand that we reserve the right to accept or reject your work. Several factors are considered in our final decision whether or not to include your work in our publication, including the message, the method by which it's conveyed, the style, and how much of it works when combined.
Entrant should be above the age of 18, having completed 18.
Please fill every detail of the Submission Form including your entries.
Your work must be your own, original, unaided work. Kindly avoid any Copyright hassles.
All the entries must be in English only.
Your original work must be submitted by email and received by the deadline posted on the page to be considered for the contest.
We will not be accepting previously published entries. We reserve first publication rights to the work published on our site.

Terms and conditions

These terms apply to the entrants for of Wordweavers Contest 2021, Escribes Publications. You agree to abide by these terms in their entirety. If you do not agree to any of these terms and conditions, you should not use this service. The organisers reserve the right to modify these terms and conditions at any time.
You agree that you are legally capable of entering the Wordweavers Contest and agree to the Terms and Conditions, and that you are competent (i.e. you are of sufficient age and mental capacity) and eligible to enter into a legally binding agreement with its rules and terms and conditions.
By submitting your creative work, you declare that the it is your own, original work, that it contains no matter which is defamatory or is otherwise unlawful in India, or which invades individual privacy or infringes any proprietary right or any statutory copyright; and you agree to indemnify and hold the organisers harmless against any claim to the contrary.
You agree that while you retain ownership of your work, and by submitting an entry to the contest, you give Escribes Publications, permission to use your entry, with acknowledgement, but with no payment to you, in their websites, as part of Press Releases (from where they may be reproduced by media organisations). Should your entry be selected for publication, you give the editors and publishers of the compilation the right to edit your work as they see.
Should you be declared a prize winner, you will be contacted solely through the name and address you had given at the time of entry submission, so that the organisers can get your mailing address. You therefore agree that you will respond to this notification within 30 days from the day of the results, and should you fail to do so, (1) the organisers have the right to award the prize to the next highest scoring entry, and (2) you forfeit all claims to the prize.
You agree that the decisions of the screening jury and the contest judges are final and binding, and no correspondence will be entertained regarding these decisions.

Saturday, 10 July 2021

Prose 500 2021 Shortlist

Selected stories on the link below.

Poetry	Short Story	Prose 500	Drabble
	Short Fiction

Leo James	Jignasa Parikh	Ankita Gupta

Harshita Nanda	Kamala Belagur	Bindu Saxena

Pratima Karanth	Canta Dadlaney	Anish Sarkar

Enakshi B	Sakshi Bhatnagar	Jyotsna Jha

Preetha Vasan

Sunday, 30 May 2021

Prose 500 2021 Longlist

Selected stories on the link below.

Poetry	Short Story	Prose 500	Drabble
	Short Fiction

Leo James	Anisha Dutta	Jignasa Parikh

Ankita Gupta	Bhupendra Dave	Harshita Nanda

Manish Ranjan	Kamala Belagur	Bindu Saxena

Pratima Karanth	Canta Dadlaney	Divvisha Bharti

Anish Sarkar	Enakshi B	Sakshi Bhatnagar

Jyotsna Jha	Preetha Vasan

Saturday, 29 May 2021

Jignasa Parikh, Featured Writer, Prose 500 2021

Aamras

It was 2.30 in the morning when he awoke from a deep sleep by a smell. A smell so strong that he had to wake up and inspect. With half sleepy eyes, he puts on his slippers and opens the door of the bedroom gently so as not to disturb his wife. He walks into the living room and takes the smell in with a deep breath in the dark.

He is twelve years old. He lies on a hammock made of an old sari tied to the two pillars under an arch. On his right is a verandah with black-and-white flooring placed diagonally and the pistachio green walls adorned by old Tanjore paintings and brown windows. On his left is a courtyard bordered with trees of all kinds. He is wearing little brown shorts with tiny sailboats on it and his t-shirt is tied around his head. The afternoon is passing by gently as he lies on his hammock. He makes binoculars of his little hands and follows a brown lizard on the wall across. He turns on the hammock making it swing gently to him. And the afternoon just passes by.

Just then an old lady comes and stands towering over his hammock. She is wearing an aubergine purple sari with tiny yellow circles on it and a border along with a green blouse that merges with the walls behind. Very unlike his own mother, who always wore matching blouses with her saris. She has kohl around her eyes, probably the same one that she made that morning while lighting the lamp. Although towering him physically, her eyes are soft and her smile full of glee.

He sits up on his hammock at once and asks her, “Is it time, Grandma?” Holding the same glee in her smile she nods in a yes. He gets off his hammock and she wraps her arm around his shoulder and they walk towards the room at the end of the verandah. She takes out the keys tied at the end of her pallu and unlocks the door. The warm sunlight enters the room before them. He steps into the room and looks around. He is in a castle of mangoes. He walks around the room, gently touching each mango like a treasure. She stands at the door watching his delight that elates her immensely. She finally walks in the room and after careful observation chooses a mango. She gently presses it between her fingers and softens it and hands it to him. He bites the stub off and sucks on the delicious juices of his first mango of the season. Although his eyes are shut to capture the taste of the mango, he knows that he is being watched with love by the woman in front of him.

He opens his eyes in his living room. His house, on that moonless night, smelled of that afternoon, of his grandmother, and of mangoes.

Bindu Saxena, Prose 500 2021 Shortlist

Trojan Horse

Are you game for Guilt-Free Pleasures? If yes, please sign up. My user name is OOHING and AAHING. Password: Hey, Honey 123. It will redirect you to the subject, captioned, TROJAN HORSE. It is the name of my new lingerie store.

Why I chose this, and why not any other pedestrian name, to house a woman's intimate apparel? Let me give credit to my creative brainstorming. Meanwhile, tick the box to read.

In Greek mythology, Trojan War made a fascinating story. It lasted many years. The Greeks could not penetrate the heavily barricaded city of Troy. Hence, one day, a few of the Greek soldiers brought the people of Troy a massive wooden horse, which the latter accepted as a peace offering. They kept it inside the city walls, where it sat until the night. After the city people had fallen asleep, Greek soldiers jumped out of the wooden horse, opened the gates to let their fellow soldiers in, and took over the city. Ever since this term, Trojan horse has meant a deceptive trick.

You may ask, how does it relate to Lingerie? Well, I thought to language this idea, to get clients (husbands, boyfriends and significant others, etc.) to bring the gift horse into their castle, for an engaging love in your Team Room. Once they find my store, a titillating gift zone, the result would be a heavy influx of raving male clients to my store. More importantly, I wanted to bring contentment and cheer that might have lost its sheen over some time, and possibly so, this might serve a new trigger and shot in their arms, to re-joining the two bed-mates together! It was my concept. And I am happy I gave birth to it.

My strategy was not about selling underwear to women but selling romance, sex, or the potential for sex, to the men who would buy this intimate garment for their wives, sweethearts, significant others, etc. One wonders, how many men go buying this particular garment for their ladies, what percentage of them even care to see it intently - is my guess. So, my idea was light playfulness. It was not sleazy and nor tacky, either. It was not about sex, per se, but rather about the whacky, crazy, naughty idea to make him wear this thinking cap, to reap in, a harvest of joining souls: to keep that special someone happy, to invest in a massive cubic centimeter of warmth, to finally achieve 746 watts, horsepower, from this relationship.

Guys! Listen. You need to love us. If you are dating a woman, you do not need to get her flowers. Give her tender, delicate, cherished moments and think she was the temple of your love. Give her offering of your desires and smell the roses with her. Handle her body with kindness and a gentle touch. You may or may not buy from my store, but never deceive her. I played a deceptive yet positive trick to bring you closer to your soul-mate. Cheerio!