People usually write fiction for these things, but you need not. Creative non-fiction, or even an anthropology paper, could fit the theme.

There's a chance, if enough people vote for your story, that it'll be included in a book. Provided, of course, that mumblemumble^{_mumblemumble}.

• The contest will run from now through Saturday October 27 at 0700 GMT. This means you should probably get it in by the previous evening, in most time zones. Voting will commence as soon thereafter as I can post a poll.

  I'm disinclined to grant extensions, what with this being a warm-up for NaNoWriMo, which will begin very shortly thereafter. Write early, write often. If you start now, you can write over several weekends.

  Update [2007-10-21 16:39:53 by ana]: The new deadline is Monday, October 29 at 0700 GMT. This will give people one more all-important weekend to ruminate. Note that this is till a gawd-awful hour in essentially everybody's time zone, so get it in the previous evening.

• The theme is loneliness and found objects. Include both of these items in your story.

• The word limit is 2500 words.

• An upload site will be provided. Watch this space. 256 seems to be kinda busy lately; does anybody else have web space and expertise to provide anonymous posting? We might be able to tease some php code out of himself, at least. Update [2007-10-2 22:31:42 by ana]: The upload site is here. Thanks (and congrats) be unto 256.

As always, cheating is encouraged. As are epistolaries at dawn.