Humor Story Contest
(Fall/Winter issue)

Deadline: October 17, 2025
Release: December 15, 2025​

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Contest Description

We're looking for stories that lighten the mood. Ideally they keep us laughing to ourselves for days or weeks after reading them so that people wonder what we're up to. 

Entries can be fiction, nonfiction, or poetry—as usual, if it tells a story, and makes us laugh, it fits!

Click here to return to the Guidelines page and to enter.

Past Winners

2024

Grand Prize 
Couches by Mark Hersh
Contributors/Honorable Mentions
​A Caffeinated Nocturne by Madeleine Snow
A Piece of My Mind by Carol Gremli
A Tense Interaction with Vlad the Impaler by Jesse                 Severson
Abstinence, Only… by Laurie Rosenwald
Airing Grievances by John Foley
​Ghostman by Meg Rayford
I Know You’ve Got a Fella by Donald Wildman
Marlboros and Roses by Chris Turner-Neal
No Stunt Doubles or Herbivores Were Harmed in the              Filming of This Program: A Comprehensive Warning
    for Sensitive Audience Members by Howard Zaharoff
Postscript from the Orgy by Bill Glose
The Art of Poetry by R.H. Miller
The Chicken by Gabriella Ramalho
The Extra by James Christy Jr.
The Gypsy Pixies by Martin McGuire
The Weekend Poet’s Mal de Debarquement
     by Laura Schulkind

2023

Grand Prize Winner
The Invitation by Angela Louise
Honorable Mentions/Contributors
A Shot at Grief by Janet Travers
​​Airbnb by Sally Cobau
Cut and Dried by Michelle Kraft
Flight of the Wiener Dog by Paul Forster
Happier Endings by Cindy Schimanski
I Have Questions by Joseph J. Ridgway
​If You Get the Chance by Mary F. Lee
It’s Good to Be Hip! by John F. Rifenberg
​​Josh Saw a UFO by Eric R Skinner
My *Not So* Silent Retreat by Joell Dunlap
No Bed of Roses by Robert English
On Being a Sympathetic CIS White Man Trying to Empathize with the Socio-Economic-Gendered-Racial Struggles of PoC, LGBTQ+, and
Non-CIS-White-Male Friends Without Being Either Pandering or Dismissive— by Bobby O’Rourke
The Closet by Casey Clifford Rock
The Essence of Wisdom by Robert H. Miller
The Far District by Greta Holt
The Pineapple Upside Down Cake Incident by Geoffrey K. Graves
Ulysses of Astoria by George H. Northrup
Waxing Gone Bad by Kate Redmond

​2022

Grand Prize
Wild Turkey by William E. Burleson
Honorable Mentions/Contributors​
Battleground by Jennifer Neves
Because I’m Cultured Like That by Ben Terry
Birks and Jerks by Eyal Cohen
Blood Buzz by Nathan Spicer
Career Advice for the Dying by Lisa Haneberg
Escape Artist by Christianna Soumakis
Found in Translation by Margaret Morth
Gender Bunny by J Mase III
Meditation on an Onion by Lollie Butler
Misdiagnosis by Sara Maria Greene
Monkey Pox by Melinda Goodman
My Job Application by Elizabeth Hill
On Shits, And How Often One Should Give Them by Jaiden Collier
Roomba by Ryan Murphy
Self Portrait as a Spermatozoon by Norman Goodwin
Shopping at Sears on a Snowy Day by Lynn Moore Rhodes
Shopping for Rugs on a Snowy Evening by Howard Zaharoff
Talking to Vincent by Ray Chatelin
The Bride and Her Toilette by Jenelle Boucher
The Jersey Slide by Don Carter
The Straight Poop by Steve Reynolds
Transformation by Stephen Schwandt

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