Owl Canyon Press is currently hosting a short story contest with a twist. They provide the first and last paragraph, and the contestant writes 48 more paragraphs.

It’s a 50 paragraph short story contest.

The grand prize is $1,000.

According to the contest page:

“In 2016 a small group of writers was presented with an informal short story challenge  — given an opening and closing paragraph, craft an original short story connecting the two.  The challenge ultimately resulted in one of the short stories evolving into the novel Dog Logic, which was published in 2017 and is currently a finalist in the Foreword Review INDIES book of the year awards and motivated the launch of the 2018 Owl Canyon Press short story hackathon. To enter, please visit Submittable for the official entry form, rules and regulations.”

The contest is open to writers around the world.

Keep in mind that by entering, you are giving the publisher non-exclusive rights to your story. Though, that seems fair, considering the nature of the contest.

The deadline to enter is July 1st, 2018.

To learn more, read the contest page here.