The No-Contest Contest

Finally -- the "no-contest contest." Send poetry or personal essays with $15 "reading fee" and receive a critique from "S.," who offers editing services and a subscription-only e-newsletter. Yes, everybody who enters the non-contest gets a critique. Here's how it works, genuine quotations:

"Step 1 - You submit an entry and S. responds.
Step 2 - You can either keep your entry as is for the contest or revise it and resubmit for consideration in the contest before the contest deadline, August 31st. "

You now demand to know the details and the prizes. Forthwith:

"Deadline: August 31, 2009
Submit: Up to six double-spaced pages of prose or three poems. S. will respond to your work within two weeks of receiving it. [Apparently S. is not very busy.]
Entry Fee: Entry fee for subscribers is $15 and for non-subscribers it is $45 and includes a year’s subscription ($30 value) to [newsletter].

"The contest finalists will be judged by a guest editor to be announced in September and winners will be notified and published in [newsletter] (we require one time only rights) in the later fall. Winners receive a half-hour consult with S. about their writing and/or publishing questions."

This is the first "contest" I have seen OPENLY established and run by an individual for their own personal monetary profit. Others like it can't be far behind...it's one way for a writer to try to make a living.