SLS Competition: Still Time and Highly Recommended

Hey readers, the SLS (Summer Literary Seminars) Unified Literary Contest––that's a mouthful––closes to submissions February 28, so there's still time to enter. There is a $15 dollar fee for each submission of fiction or poetry. The prizes are:

• First Place–All expenses paid (airfare, tuition, and housing) to one of their three seminars in Montreal, Canada; Vilnius, Lithuania; or Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya as well as publication in Fence.
• Second Place-Full tuition waiver only
• Third Place-50% off tuition

In addition several other finalists receive amounts off their tuition. Last year, as one of the 30 qualifying finalists, I was eligible for a 25% tuition waiver. Being the eternal skeptic, my first thought was they decided to offer the discount to all entrants after they couldn't get enough people to attend. So before I enjoyed a woo-hoo moment I decided to post some inquiries in forums. I learned that wasn't the case and the discount was a standard part of the competition for which not everyone qualified. (I really have to get a handle on that Sicilian outlook on life), but be that as it may, even with the discount I couldn't justify the airfare to last year's locations.  Still, it proves this is not one of those "insider" competitions where they say everyone has a chance, but they don't. Plus, a trip to Montreal might be more in line with what my readers can afford. So, why not go for it?