THE RETURN OF\u2026<\/p>\n
Admit it! You saw this premise coming.<\/p>\n
For this contest, write a creative, compelling, well-crafted story between 1,000 and 5,000 words long in which someone or something has returned after a significant absence. Does this return make people happy, unhappy, or somewhere in-between? That\u2019s up to you. Also: Was this return a surprise, or was it expected? That\u2019s also up to you.<\/p>\n
GENRE RULES:<\/strong>\u00a0No fiction aimed at readers younger than 12, no exploitative sex, no over-the-top grossout horror. Also, no stories that are obvious parodies of existing fictional worlds\/characters created by other authors. (For the same reason, we do not accept \u201cfan fiction\u201d.) Follow those rules and we\u2019ll take anything from the most super-realistic literary drama to crazy farces (real-world or otherwise) to any variant of science fiction or fantasy you can imagine. Read our past issues and you\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n Deadline:<\/strong>\u00a011:59 PM Eastern US time,\u00a0Friday, January 2, 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n One entry per author. There is\u00a0no fee<\/strong>\u00a0for entering this contest. For this contest, write a story in which someone or something has returned after a significant absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[3],"class_list":["post-7700","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","hentry","tribe_events_cat-contest","cat_contest"],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/7700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/7700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7701,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/7700\/revisions\/7701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7700"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anovelapproach.ca\/submission_calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=7700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
Remember to take all author information out of your story!<\/strong>\u00a0Tell us who you are in the space provided in the web form cover letter you get when you click on the \u201csubmit\u201d button, NOT in your story! No headers, no bylines\u2026 just the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"