Call for contributors: the Chain Letter Short Story Project #2!

chain letter short story project

Want to be a part of something that literally makes its way around the world? Are you into creative writing? Do you like sending mail? Well do I have the project for you!

Last year I started the Chain Letter Short Story Project. I started a story by writing a scene on a piece of paper by hand. Then it was passed to six more people, so from Toronto to Malta, to Northern Ireland, to Portugal, to Italy, to Arkansas, to Virginia and back to me to finish the story. It took so many twists and turns, I was so into how the story turned out! You can now read it in zine form! I will make this year’s project into a zine, too.

It took about a year to get the story around and back, so this is a long-term project.

So here’s my call for contributors for the 2nd story round.

I am looking for 6 participants across the globe. You must be willing to:

  1. Write a page of the story. (Like, basic notebook size.) It must be in relation to what came before it. You can handwrite, type, stamp, whatever. As long as it’s legible and in English.
  2. Include an accompanying illustration on a separate sheet of paper no bigger than 8.5″ x 5.5″. Do whatever you’d like!
  3. Include any web links you’d like on your page in the zine. (Blog, Instagram, etc)
  4. Have it in your possession for no more than 2 weeks.
  5. Email me when you get it and when you’re done with it to get the address of the next participant. And then mail it to them.
  6. If you’re posting about it online, add the tag #papertraildiary. We want to see its’ progress!

Sidenotes:

  1. No other participants from Toronto/nearby. Sorry! I want this to reach out!
  2. Participants from the last round are disqualified, to be fair.
  3. I’d love to have participants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, let’s really get this to cross the globe!

UPDATE: I’ve already received many requests, so I’ve closed this round. Perhaps I’ll start another one soon or wait till next year. Thanks for all the interest!!