Deeper meaning can be found in every journey. For some journeys, it’s accidental. For others, the pursuit of deeper meaning is the point. For our 8th travel writing competition, Intrepid Times invites writers to consider the idea of a pilgrimage.
$300 Monetary Prize. (Free!) Entry is Open Now – Learn More and Register Here
You can get the full scoop about the competition and how to enter on the official page linked above. In this short article, I want to give a few tips from an editor’s perspective on how to maximize your chances of winning.
First, seek inspiration where you can find it. We’ve hosted over half a dozen Travel Writing Competitions over the years, and you can read all of the winning and shortlisted stories right here on Intrepid Times. For example, you may want to check out “Your Roots are Showing” by Amie McGraham and “The Jeweled Lotus” by E.E. Rhodes.
The winners are, rightly, all different, but they share a few things in common. They all are about the writer but not just about the writer. They connect the journey of the author to bigger, greater themes others can care about and feel invited into. They also often contain the classic beginning, middle, and end story structure: The writer sets out with a purpose, encounters obstacles, and finds themselves at the end, in a way, transformed. We think ‘Pilgrimages’ is a perfect theme to lend itself to this kind of narrative structure.
Seeking inspiration? Listen to our Travel Writing Podcast episode with Tim Matthis where he speaks about what a secular pilgrimage means to him (and as a former evangelical preacher, he should know!) and be sure to read those entries I mentioned above.
Finally, we do encourage writers to write specifically for the theme. A piece written by someone who clear reads Intrepid Times and gets what we do here stands out so much more than a generic story a writer has clearly submitted to hundreds of places and has just slightly tweaked to nod towards to theme.
Good luck!
