I'm so excited to tell you that Don George at Lonely Planet is putting together a humor collection! I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel competitive about this (TT can slap me later), but I don’t feel that way at all. And I really really want to get a story in so I’ll have to come up with something quick!
To get stories, they’ve just posted a competition on their website.
Read on for more details and good luck with your submissions! A little birdy told me that slots are filling up FAST!
BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS (Fall, 2005)
Some of life’s funniest experiences happen on the road. Whether they
take the form of unexpected detours, unintended adventures, unidentifiable
dinners or unforgettable encounters, these experiences can give birth to our most profound travel lessons and illuminations, and our most memorable
– and hilarious – travel stories. LonelyPlanet.com is looking for humourous
stories of exceptionally high literary quality that illustrate this theme.
We are especially interested in stories that fall under one of four themes:
1) Food
2) People
3) Accommodation
4) Transportation.
But if you have a wonderfully funny story that doesn’t fall neatly under any of these, we also have a fifth category – Miscellaneous – created just for you.
We envision globe-girdling stories that run the gamut from flat-tire safaris to loss-of-face follies, eccentric expats to mind-boggling repasts, wrong trains taken to agreements mistaken, romance gone awry to planes that shouldn’t fly. The subject and setting of the stories are completely open; the only requirement is that the tales be funny! Submissions must be original, unpublished stories of from 1,000 to 3,000 words, and must be received by Nov. 30, 2004. All entries will be read by a panel of Lonely Planet editors. Winning entries will be announced and published on LonelyPlanet.com.
All entries will also automatically be considered for publication in Lonely
Planet’s humour anthology, By the Seat of My Pants, which will be published in the fall of 2005.
NOTE: They are also giving out prizes for the website competition.
First prize: $100
Second prize: $50
Third prize: $25
Publication on LonelyPlanet.com – and maybe even in the humour anthology!