June 24, 2013

Fiction Contest: Summer 2013


Fiction Contest: Summer 2013

We’re holding a contest!

The cover image for our July/August 2013 issue (click on the thumbnail at right for larger view) was lost for 80 years. It bore the simple inscription “Soldiers at Omsk Train Station,” yet it seems to us to contain huge potential for a short story. It was, after all, taken in late 1918, as Russia lurched from World War to Civil War, from monarchy to proletarian dictatorship. What is this man’s story?

So we are sponsoring a short story contest. Here are the rules.

  1. All stories must be submitted in electronic format, via email (with text or MS Word attachment) to [email protected]
  2. Stories may be a maxium of 500 words. Maximum two entries per person.
  3. Stories must be submitted in English. All entries must include entrant’s full name, address, and email address.
  4. Stories will be judged on their literary merit and on how well they interpret or are inspired by the cover image for this issue, or the full image printed on page 28. Judges’ decisions will be final. Judges may decide that there are no winners to the contest or multiple winners.
  5. Stories may not have been previously published in any form.
  6. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2013, at midnight Eastern Time. Winners will be announced in the November/December issue of the magazine.
  7. No one associated with the magazine by employment or by relation is eligible for participation in the contest. Freelance article authors are eligible.
  8. By submitting an entry to the contest, you agree to have your essay published without compensation, should you be chosen by the judges as a winner.

The cover image is actually only part of the full image. Subscribers to the print edition will see the full image in the opening spread of the article on John Rahill's Magic Lantern. You do not, however, need to be a subscriber to Russian Life to partake in the contest. Here is a web resolution version of the image to give non-subscribers a better idea of all it includes.

Prizes

The chief prize for winning this contest is seeing your story published in a future issue of Russian Life. But we are also sweetening the pot. Winners will receive a box full of Russian Life swag, meaning books and other goodies, valued at between $50 and $100.

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Some of Our Books

Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

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