BY JORDAN COATES
Special to the Lions’ Pride

If you like to write, let your creativity pay off.

Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society is teaming up with the English Department to sponsor a campus-wide writing contest. Translation: It’s not just for English majors. This is a contest for anyone and everyone interested in self-expression.

The contest will consist of a flash fiction containing anywhere from 250 to 500 words. What’s flash fiction? Flash fiction, also known as micro-fiction, is simply a very short story.

This is an open contest meaning that the writers are free to write about whatever they want. Feel free to be crazy and absurd; have fun in your writing.

For examples of flash fiction, check out works by Robert Olen Butler, Stuart Dybek, or Michael Martone. All three are excellent flash-fiction writers who could provide just the inspiration needed for the perfect story.

Even if you don’t normally write, give it a shot. Have something previously written? Send it in! Or you can just be creative and write something fresh!

There will be a first, second, and third place winner. First place will take home a $100 dollar gift certificate; second place, $50; and third place, $25. The winners will also have the opportunity to read their work at an open mic in November.

The deadline for this contest is October 31.

Please submit your work to Patrick Crerand either in his office in Lewis Hall, mailbox in Saint Edward Hall or email it to patrick.crerand@saintleo.edu. Crerand is a new English teacher here at Saint Leo, as well as the university’s fiction specialist. Crerand wants students to remember that “writing is a fun way to express themselves.”