THE CHALLENGE: Write a story set in the town or city where you live, but imagine that it (and its surrounding area) has been flooded with several hundred thousand gallons of crude oil daily, because of a drilling-related crisis some weeks earlier. You might find using the interactive Gulf Coast Oil Spill Map helpful in this eco-catastrophic exercise, but it’s not a requirement.

THE PRIZES: HiLobrow will donate $100 in honor of the contest winner to the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit which seeks to prevent offshore oil spills. (Two-time Significant Objects author Lydia Millet is on the organization’s board.) The winner will also be sent a HiLobrow t-shirt (all sizes except Men’s Large available), and his or her story will be published on HiLobrow.com. Three finalists will also be selected; we’ll donate $50 apiece to CBD for these.

THE GUIDELINES: No more than 250 words. Only one story per person. Stories featuring explicit/hardcore/extreme sex and/or violence will not be considered. Curse words OK, though, if necessary. Stories replete with spelling and/or grammatical errors will not be considered. Do not include a title.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR STORY: Post it to the comments section of “City on a Spill,” a story I wrote last week. The deadline is 5 p.m. (EST) on June 5th. NOTE: Content published on HiLobrow.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

THE JUDGES: The stories will be judged by HiLobrow.com editors Matthew Battles and Joshua Glenn, and HiLobrow’s Magister Ludi, Patrick Cates.

Oil Spill Crisis: New York

Matthew Battles, Matthew De Abaitua, and I selected Charles Pappas’ story from a pool of over 225 entries. Here’s the illustration we commissioned, for the winning story, from our talented friend Rick Pinchera:

Intrigued? Read the story! And stay tuned, because Hilobrow.com will be announcing another micro-fiction contest soon.

Over at Hilobrow.com, a critical-culture website that I coedit with Matthew Battles, we’ve just invited our readers to enter a science-fiction short-short story contest. We’d be delighted to have Significant Objects readers enter, as well. Check it out.

CONTEST DEADLINE: February 15 (soon!)

STORY LENGTH: No more than 250 words

STORY THEME: troubled and/or troubling superhumans

THE JUDGES: Hilobrow.com editors Matthew Battles and Joshua Glenn; and Hilobrow.com contributor Matthew De Abaitua, author of the award-winning 2009 sci-fi novel The Red Men and a presenter for the British TV series SF:UK.

PRIZE: Hilobrow t-shirt; story published on Hilobrow.com and recorded as part of a podcast. A few runners-up will be published on the website, also.

CONTEST GUIDELINES & MORE CLICK HERE

Think you can write a great 500-word story in which the item pictured above (a BBQ Sauce Jar) features significantly? You’ll get an opportunity to do so, soon. A well-known online magazine is going to judge a Significant Objects fiction contest — the winning story will be published by the magazine, and also on this site, and (naturally) on eBay when we auction off the BBQ Sauce Jar. Stay tuned for more details about the contest!