Toronto Star and Toronto Public Library Host 2013 Short Story Contest

So you think you want to be a writer? Well, here's your chance to see if you have what it takes to become a published author.

Effective Saturday, January 5, aspiring authors aged 16 and older living in Ontario are invited to enter the Toronto Star 2013 Short Story Contest, which is the largest contest of its kind in Canada and one of the biggest in North America. The contest is co-sponsored by the Toronto Public Library and the Humber School for Writers.

The winners will be selected by a panel of distinguished judges and will have their stories published in the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper.

The contest, which is now in its 35th year, carries the most lucrative prize in Canada, with a grand prize of $5,000 plus the tuition fee for the 30-week creative writing correspondence program at the Humber School for Writers, valued at approximately $3,000.

In addition to the first prize, there will be a $2,000 second prize and a $1,000 third prize.
This is the fourth consecutive year that the Toronto Public Library has been a partner with the Star in presenting the contest, which attracted more than 2,000 entries last year.

The judges for the 2013 contest will be Jessica Westhead, author of a short story collection and a novelist; Jane Pyper, city librarian of the Toronto Public Library; Dianne Rinehart, books and visual arts editor for the Toronto Star; and Richard Ouzounian, theatre critic for the Toronto Star and author of six books.

Winners will be announced in April during the Toronto Public Library's annual reading festival, Keep Toronto Reading. Their stories will be published in the Toronto Star.

The deadline for submitting entries is Sunday, February 24. For full contest rules, please visit www.thestar.com/contests.

The Toronto Star, founded in 1892, is read in print and online (thestar.com) by 3.0 million readers every week. The Toronto Star is a division of Star Media Group, which includes Toronto.com, Torstar Syndication Services, The Grid city magazine and Star Content Studios. Star Media Group also includes the majority-owned Metro free daily newspapers in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon and London, and the Chinese language newspaper Sing Tao. Star Media Group is a division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, which is a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation.

Toronto Public Library is the world's busiest urban public library system. Every year, more than 19 million people visit our branches in neighbourhoods across the city borrow over 33 million items. To learn more about Toronto Public Library, visit our website at torontopubliclibrary.ca or call Answerline at 416-393-7131. To get the most current updates on what's happening at the library, follow us on Twitter@torontolibrary.

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