I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality of submissions to our writing contest. We've received 16 submissions from people across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. I'm looking forward to many more submissions from those places and other parts of the world. There's still plenty of time...the contest ends February 28th, and you can submit as many stories as you like. Remember, we're looking for fake news, 70-150 words, where the content can be personalized. The news doesn't have to be ultra-topical (but it can be). It might be totally made up news, where it's not a spoof or satire of an actual event, or it might be a spoof of something actually going on. Here's one submission that we received from the writer of Jagpot: *** Toronto - In local sporting news, Rebecca Sasser set a new Guinness record today by throwing a full-grown man 19 feet, 2 inches. This tops the old record of 18 feet, established by Roseanne Barr in 1994, just days before her divorce from Tom Arnold. Local resident Al Smith, the man thrown by Ms. Sasser, had this to say immediately after the record-breaking feat: "Hey! What the hell, lady?" "I had just left Starbucks, minding my own business, when this woman grabs me by the neck and throws me across the goddamn street," Mr. Smith added later, appearing to not yet fully grasp the importance of his role in sports history. When asked what inspired her historical toss, Ms. Sasser replied, "I don't know. I felt strong, the wind was right, and that guy just looked aerodynamic somehow." *** I've bolded those bits of information that would have been personalized in the story. As well, one could consider this a "sports" story, so the recipient (in this case, I think it would be Mr. Smith) would have been interested in sports. Ms. Sasser would likely have been the person that sent the page to Mr. Smith with this story included on that page. As you can see, this is a news story but it's not related to anything going on...at least I don't think so... To those that have submitted already, thank you. To those still interested in submitting, please do. To those that have just come across this now, I hope to hear from you, and look forward to laughing at your writing (not because your writing is bad, but because it's funny!) (Technorati Tags: writing, contest, satire)