Goal to go

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Where did this year go, anyway?

It was a mediocre year in the garden, probably my own disengagement as much as anything. I need to build a section onto my yard irrigation system that better waters the vegetable garden automatically. But it’s October, one last week and then time to rebuild the hoophouse over my garden. October, first major projects are due in my class. October, rabbit brush! October, graduate applications must have been filed. October, it’s 95-word fiction time.

You know our 95-word short fiction contest? We have it every year, and every year you say, “You know, next year I’m going to write one of those stories.” Then you usually start emailing me in March asking when it’s going to happen.

The rules are simple. Write us a story that’s exactly 95 words (counted by LibreOffice, or Google Docs), excluding title. We like stories that have a beginning, middle and an end. Lots of times they say something insightful. Sometimes they make us laugh. Sometimes they tug at our heartstrings. I can’t remember a poem ever winning—so don’t bother.

Then, send the story to renofiction@newsreview.com with Fiction 2012 in the subject line. I prefer it if the story is pasted into the message field of the email. Sometimes our email server kicks out emails with attachments, so if you don’t get that call for a photograph and your story doesn’t appear in this august publication on Nov. 8, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Of course, it might also be because the piece was just bad.

Speaking of Nov. 8—November!—I had to change the deadline for submission on this contest to 9 a.m. on Oct. 25 because initially I had us publishing the Thursday before the election. And you know, that just wouldn’t do.