Deadline:

11:59 p.m.-ish, Friday, June 15, 2012

Winners announced/losers confirmed:

6 a.m.-ish, Monday, July 2, 2012

The reading period for the 2nd Annual Fortune Cookie Fortune Writing Contest is now closed, and the contest is complete. Winners and runners up were announced on July 2. Click here to see what the contestants came up with this year.

Please send entries via email only to jhdouc@verizon.net.

Winning fortunes and honorable mentions from last year’s event can be found at this link.

Fair Grounds Coffee on the upstairs of 806 Baldwin Ave., on the corner of Baldwin and Colley avenues in Norfolk, Va., will display winners and runners up in July.

Prizes included these signed books:

• Norton Girault’s short story collection Out Among the Rooster Men
• Dana Heller’s Hairspray, a study of the film by John Waters
• Connie Sage’s biography Frank Batten: The Untold Story of the Founder of the Weather Channel 
• Two copies of Tim Seibles’ new poetry volume Fast Animal
• Wells Tower’s short story collection Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

The first place winner picks three books. Second place picks two of the remainder. Third place gets what’s left.

In addition to the pick of the books, the first place winner also gets gift certificates to Fair Grounds, the outstanding java emporium, and Local Heroes, an amazing local comic book shop, as well as a Fair Grounds mug and a Local Heroes tee (XL only though [plan your weight loss or gain accordingly]). Winners also get free movie rentals from Naro Expanded Video in Norfolk.

Thanks to both fine local businesses, and, of course, to the authors noted above.

Basic ground rules follow …

In this test of skill and conciseness, readers contribute (hopefully) clever or artistic fortune or fortunes of their own creation to me via email to jhdouc@verizon.net – not in the comments, please.

Funny fortunes. Clever fortunes. Poetic fortunes. Artistic fortunes. Silly fortunes. Sad fortunes. Angry fortunes. Your hopes and dreams, your fears and foibles. Whatever way you want to approach it. It just has to fit on or to the form of a fortune slip, so please keep it to about 30 words or less. Cartoons, (original) comic strips, photos, and artwork all are encouraged, not just the written word – it just has to fit into a fortune cookie fortune sized space, such as this:

There will be modest prizes of my choosing, including signed books by authors previously featured on this blog. Last year’s prizes included Ted Danson and Mike D’Orso‘s Oceana and Earl Swift‘s The Big Roads. There also may be prizes from local businesses in the Hampton Roads area. Or maybe not. Details to come when the reading period nears.

I’ll take questions here in the comments, or via email to jhdouc@verizon.net. Please do not post your entries in the comments.

The rules of entry:

1. All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m., June 15, via email to jhdouc@verizon.net. Fortunes left in the comments will not be eligible for prizes.
2. Please include your name as you want it to appear on the blog, as well as what you do for a living, and your town and state of residence. Understand that this information may be published along with your entry.
3. If you have a problem with having your hometown or full name on the blog, please include this in the email containing an entry/or entries. The Internet can be a scary place. Just let the author of this blog know.
4. Submit entries in the text of your email to the author of this blog via jhdouc@verizon.net. or submit prose by emailing files in the .doc, .docx, or .pdf formats. Please enter artwork in the .jpg or .png formats only. If you submit artwork in the .pdf format, it will lose a generation before it reaches the blog, and therefore will look lame.
5. By entering, you agree to let the author of this blog publish your fortune with your name on the blog and display the fortune at a Norfolk-area business.
6. As odd as it may be to state amid a come-on for such an unoriginal contest, please don’t plagiarize. The author of this blog tends to check for that sort of thing.
7. This blog is for fun. This contest is for fun. Please keep it in that spirit.
8. If you are related to the author of this blog by blood or marriage, you can’t win a prize, but you can still have a fortune published. If you are my wife, you’ve already won a prize, baby. Ahem.
9. There will be at least three winners, all chosen by the author of this blog in coordination with guest judges.
10. Don’t attack an individual, unless it’s the author of this blog. If that’s your burning passion, at least be funny about it.
11. Please don’t use curse words.
12. No fortunes that are profane, violent, sexually graphic, racist, etc., will see the electrons of day here. This is not to say that I wouldn’t consider art that tackles challenging subjects in an honest way, but this is not really the right forum for especially graphic material or gratuitous language and imagery. Admittedly, this is subjective.
13. Winners will be announced July 2, 2012, here at the blog.

LAST UPDATED ON June 10, 2012