With two short story competitions behind us this year, we're ready for the third installment. Let us kick off the June/July competition and celebrate Lohlunat! The rules are similar to prior events, with the Risian Lohlunat holiday as our theme. We all look forward to great writing once again.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Write with the eloquence of Dentari in The Fire in Which We Burn:

"Pulling herself back to her feet yet again, Captain Larrenson lurched towards the helm in an attempt to take manual control of her ship. She was relieved to find the view screen in working order, but this relief was overshadowed by what the view screen showed her; the flotsam and jetsam of the battle arced across her field of vision and the opposing Jem'Hadar and Cardassian fleet was heavily engaged with the Federation Task Force."

Write with unbridled fun like Three of Seven in Precious Cargo:

"When the Admiral got to deck 7, all the lights were off, just the emergency lighting in the direction of main engineering, so she headed that way to the main doors, punching the emergency release. "Is there anyone here?" she called out when suddenly the lights flashed on and a banner came down with the words ‘Happy First Contact day!'"

These are just small examples of the stupendous creativity we have in our community, and we want to see the same from you!

RULES

The point of the short story contest is to show off your writing and story-telling skills. This can be a couple paragraph quip all the way to a multiple paragraph tale. As recommended in the past, towards the shorter end is probably more ideal as it allows people to get into the action quickly. But the length is your choice.

Remember, in order to anonymize this as best we can, try to avoid using your own name or those of your known characters. We want to keep any bias out of the voting if at all possible.

The theme this time is the Risian holiday of Lohlunat. You should write your story using this theme as a backdrop of some sort. And remember - given this is on Risa - keep it to PG-13 and within our UFP Code of Conduct.

PROCESS

The process is simple:

1. First, plan and compose your story - again, on the shorter side is probably better (especially with a lot of entries).
2. Submit your entry by sending a PM to me, >> Caymen Greener <<. Include the title and content. Submit these to me by Saturday, July 5th!
3. Leading up to the festival day, we will vote as a community. The stories will be posted to the voting thread anonymously, in the order in which I receive them.
4. On the 12th, we will end voting and announce a winner.

THE PRIZE!

Other than eternal fame and glory, there has to be a prize, right? The winning story and its author will be featured in our News outlet to be read by all those in and out of the UFP community!

So get to your writing and enjoy the fun theme this time!