Guideposts' Writers Workshop Contest: Is This Your Year?

Karen Jason fulfilled a lifelong dream by seeing one of her stories published in Guideposts. Enter the Guideposts Writers Workshop Contest and your dream could also come true.

by Karen Jason
From Posted in Tell Us Your Story, Mar 9, 2018

Guideposts editors and contest winners at the 2016 Writers Workshop

I read Guideposts as a teenager, growing up in India. An American pastor and his wife lived in the apartment upstairs, and they shared their magazines with us. I loved the stories. I could so relate to the struggles people went through. We were a church-going family, but even if you weren’t, these stories could help you.

2016 Writers Workshop winner Karen Jason “I’m going to have a story published in Guideposts someday,” I told my sisters. The chances of that happening seemed unlikely. What stories would a girl in India have for a magazine published in America? But dreams are dreams, and I trusted God with mine. I wanted to become a writer like the ones I read in Guideposts, people like Marion Bond West, Sue Monk Kidd and Roberta Messner.

Instead, I became a high school science teacher. I got married, had a child. One day I noticed a newspaper ad seeking science teachers to work in America.

I took a chance and got the job! Our young family moved to Pennsylvania, and I taught in a high school in the Philadelphia suburbs. I kept reading Guideposts. I noticed that it had a Writers Workshop Contest. Why not enter? I worked and worked on my story.

In June 2016, I sent it off. Two days later, I became a U.S. citizen, and in August I got a call. I was one of the winners of the Writers Workshop!

I have now had a story published in Guideposts (The Perfect Flag, July 2017). Even better, I had the thrill of going through the same all-expenses-paid, weeklong workshop that taught Marion, Sue and Roberta to write true first-person stories of hope and inspiration. God has answered my dreams better than I could have imagined.

Have you ever dreamed of becoming a writer? Do you have a great, uplifting story to tell? Enter the Writers Workshop Contest. This is your chance to see your dream come true.

Win a week with us in Rye, New York, at the Guideposts Writers Workshop (all expenses paid), and we’ll share everything we know about inspirational storytelling. Your story could be read by millions in one of our magazines—Guideposts, Angels on Earth, All Creatures or Mysterious Ways. We’re looking for true first-person stories, not sermons or essays. It can be your own story or something you’ve written for someone else. We’ll pick 12 candidates for the workshop held October 8–12, 2018, taught by the editors of Guideposts.

HOW TO ENTER: Submit an original, unpublished true first-person story of 2,000 words or fewer, typewritten and double-spaced, about an experience that changed your life. Show us how faith made a difference. Or you can ghostwrite for someone else. Make sure to tell us about yourself and your life experience. Send your entry and letter, postmarked by June 10, 2018, to Guideposts Writers Workshop, 110 William Street, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. Submit online at guideposts .org/wwcontest, or e-mail it to [email protected] guideposts.org. Winners will be notified by mid- August 2018. We acknowledge winning entries only. Writers who have attended previous Guideposts workshops are not eligible.

The Writers Workshop is sponsored by best-selling author Debbie Macomber. “I’ve kept journals all my life,” she says. “Not long ago, I found a spiral notebook from 1977. On the first page, it said, ‘Since the greatest desire of my life is to become a writer, I’ll start with the pages of this journal.’ Putting those words down was the beginning.” Today there are some 200 million copies of Debbie’s books in print.