Happy Birthday, Little Bird!

We are proud as peacocks this year – our writing contest is five years old today!

I wanted to put a picture of a peacock on this page, but peacocks aren’t really little birds, are they? So here is a picture of a baby peacock.

Over the past five years, we’ve seen hundreds of brand new short stories finished by our spring deadline (finished stories are truly something to celebrate), introduced five critically-acclaimed authors to our fine readership (Little Bird judges are consistently surprised by the high calibre of our submissions) and launched sixteen beautiful new short stories into the world (most written by authors who have never published before!)

We’ve also given hundreds of dollars to the Pelee Island Bird Observatory! Proceeds from the sale of Little Bird Stories go toward protecting migratory birds. This small, active, and important non-profit is located at Canada’s southernmost tip, right in the middle of Lake Erie, where Ontario and Ohio meet. (I'm a dual citizen: I love the fact that birds don’t pay attention to borders – they’re at home in both Thunder Bay and Houston, depending on the weather.)

The Little Bird Contest is truly a Little Phenomenon. We don’t make money from this contest – we do it because we just love running it. I'm so happy to meet new writers and add good stories to the short fiction ecosystem. And starting last year, due to a generous and partly magical patron, we can now give $1000 to every first place winner. That means that I get to send a big dollop of money to a new writer every spring. Bliss.