Forget Hot Girl Summer... It's #ShortStorySummer

Now that I'm officially a graduate from Southern New Hampshire University, with a Bachelors in CREATIVE WRITING (HUZZAH!), I have shifted some of my day-to-day focus on developing a great portfolio of work, with the aim to get published. Well, a couple weeks ago I was chatting with another writer (Hey AJ!) in Quill & Cup about this goal and she shared that she has a similar goal for the summer. We both wanted to beef up our short story portfolios, and were thinking summer time would be a great time to do it.

Why do you need to beef up your short story portfolio, you ask? (Thanks for using the term "beef up". God I love silly phrases like that.) AJ and I both hope to be traditionally published in the future---which means we plan to enter the querying trenches at some point. We both also believe that getting positive results from querying possibly (probably?) hinges on being able to say that you've been published before. My assumption is that to quickly sort through the heaps of query letters they get, Agents have developed a system to look for specific things quickly: 1) your blurb, and 2) your credentials. The rest of the letter, unless it's just freaking amazing, is possibly irrelevant. Maybe they'll look at word count if that's something that matters for your genre, but that would be less important than the two items above.

AJ made another good point about getting short stories published: to an Agent, it probably makes you look more serious about your writing. Not only have you finished a manuscript (A BIG DEAL, PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK), but you're capable of going through the editing process, capable of taking feedback. Capable of dealing with rejection (bc ain't nobody getting their first ever submitted short story published, let's be real). It shows Agents that you might be better cut out for dealing with the process of getting a book published.

Obviously, since neither of us is traditionally published yet**, this is speculation. But misbeliefs lead to adventures, don't they? Isn't that what stories are all about?

Enter: The #ShortFictionSummer Challenge! AJ and I wanted some accountability to, ahem, beef up our portfolios and submit our stories. We thought, why not invite others to join! We invited our Hedgie sisters, and we'd love to have anyone else join us who is interested in also getting beefy. Okay, I'm officially done with that metaphor now.

If you'd like to join us, details are below. Go follow @a.j.volante and @kaileybhaider on Instagram and message one or both of us to let us know you want to join the challenge. We'll add you to the IG chat. Or if you just want to be like a side-stander, participate in the challenge---write your stories and not have to socialize---that's cool, too. But please use the #ShortFictionSummer hashtag! We want to cheer you on, encourage you, and if you choose to share your work, we'll share it, too!

AJ and I are cohosting the Short Story Summer Challenge—a writing challenge that will hopefully help all of us build up our portfolio of short stories. We believe that writing and publishing short stories helps gain readership, and also helps your chances while querying. The challenge will run from June 20th — September 21st. Over the 13 weeks, we encourage you to write a total of six short stories. We’ll provide prompts, some of which correspond to calls for submission.

Q&A

How does this work?

The 13 weeks are split into 2-week periods (with a break for the week of the 4th of July). Each period we will focus on one prompt per period.All participants will be added to an instagram chat where we’ll share the prompts, as well as encouragement along the way! At the end of the two weeks, we encourage you to share a snippet of your short story (or the whole thing, if you can fit it into a readable format) with the group. We also encourage you to share your fellow summer challenge participants’ posts, but this is NOT a requirement. If you do post your story, please use the hashtag #shortstorysummer so AJ & I can track them and share them on our pages!

Do I have to write 6 stories? Can I write more or less?

You can write however many stories you want/ have time for! We think 6 is a good number that won’t lead to burnout, but if it becomes too much, that’s totally okay! Likewise, if you want to write more, go for it! We encourage you to make sure you keep your cup full

Is this an official Quill & Cup Challenge?

No, this is just something we decided to do because we had a mutual goal to write more short stories this summer, and we thought it would be fun to share with others. The challenge will be hosted on social media, and is open to anyone who wants to join (tell your writer friends!)

What are the prompts?

We’re still coordinating those with the challenge timeline, but we’ll share them as soon as we can!

How do I sign up?

It’s easy! There are just 2 steps:

1. Follow @a.j.volante and @kaileybhaider on Instagram. (Feel free to unfollow us once the challenge is over! There is no pressure to continue following us afterwards.)

2. Send one of us a message that you want to join the summer challenge.

We’re excited to write with you this summer!! Please reach out to either of us with any questions.

**I can't wait to update this blog when that happens :)

Bye!

Kailey