Win two tickets to the Austin Film Festival which runs October 27th through November 3rd.

https://austinfilmfestival.com

Prompt

Bikes. Duh.

Actually, this is a very practical prompt because you can read your story at future Bike Story Nights. The program is run by Valerie Ruiz, who also leads Spokes y Folx, and we’re big fans!

Bicycles will be a prominent theme in the winning story.

Tell yo fwendz!

The winner gets TWO passes; why not increase your chances of winning and get your date to submit a story too? For your convenience, we created this easy-to-remember URL for your social medias:

https://dd.coffee/contest

Important dates

• Submit your story by midnight Texas time August 31st

• Winner will be announced by midnight Texas time September 7th

How to enter

You will need to submit your story in two formats:

1. Written

2. Audio recorded

This is because we want to publish the good stories to our blog and our podcast.

Never recorded before? My favorite FREE audio recording app is Audacity. It’s extremely straightforward. Just record stuff, and then delete sections of the audio wave you don’t want. It’s available for Mac and Windows:

https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

There’s a lot of recording apps for Android and Apple phones too. Just find a real quiet place to record — not Dear Diary, I guess! Haha

Email your audio narration and typed transcript to

litsa+contest@deardiary.coffee

Rules

• Clear cycling, cyclist, and/or bicycle theme. Stories about Bicycle playing cards, for example, don’t count you rascally punsters!

• Must take 10 minutes or less to read aloud at a comfortable pace (3,800 words or less)

• Audio recordings must be clear, intelligible, and free of excessive background noise

• Only standard, common audio formats will be accepted (such as .WAV or .MP3)

• Written stories must be typed in the body of your submission email, not attached as a .doc or whatever

Terms

By entering this contest, you understand and agree to the following terms

• Entry is free

• One winner will be chosen

• The winner will receive two standard Austin Film Festival passes for 2022 (worth $75 each)

• I have no idea whether passes are transferrable… you’ll have to ask Austin Film Festival directly about those sorts of details

• You may submit multiple stories if you’d like

• We may publish your story to Dear Diary Coffee channels such as our blog, our podcast, and social media

• We may invite you to read at storytelling events

• We will communicate with you over email regarding this contest

• We may add you to our mailing list, and you can unsubscribe any time (we just send a newsletter out every month or two)

• You may co-author stories and co-produce audio. If you do, please name all contributors in your submission email so we can give them proper credit

• Dear Diary LLC is indemnified against any and all damage, loss, and other claims in association with this contest

Get inspired

Are you curious about the stories that won last time?

We posted them as individual blog articles here:
https://www.deardiary.coffee/blogcast

The theme last time was “Four Queens.”

Good luck!