Use the unfinished charcoal drawing featured above as inspiration to create a work of speculative fiction.

Feel free to use, modify, or incorporate the artwork itself.

By "speculative fiction" I refer generally to the genres of fantasy and science fiction. However, the judges - a group of writers, editors, and educators in Berkeley and San Rafael - are open to a broad interpretation of this definition and are concerned primarily with quality and impact, not with technicalities. We favor prose, however your piece can be poetry, something in between, or even something that lives somewhere at the fringes. Impress us.

Note: The judges are "classical liberals." We do not identify as political left or right. We are inclusive. We are open-minded. We do not think half of America is dumb. It is not in your interest to attempt to appeal to an agenda. We live in the greater San Francisco area and we have had quite enough of that. Whether it be horror, dramatic, romantic, or humorous, we value strong clear writing that delivers on a visceral level. Nothing else matters to us. Focus on the writing.

There will be one winner: 10 SBD

There will be one runner-up: 5 SBD

SBD transferred to this account with the memo "The Muse of March" will be added to the contest rewards and split between the winner and runner-up 50/50.

The judging process will take several days or more once the contest is closed since all of us have many demands upon our time. We will try to get the judging done as soon as possible.

CONTEST RULES

Entries must be written in English (the only language all the judges share).

Only one entry for each individual.

This contest is intended to promote the STEEMIT platform, which we all believe in and wish to see flourish. Therefore, your entry must be posted on your Steemit blog and linked from there to the comments section below.

This contest runs until the end of the month. Anything submitted later than March 2018 will be disqualified.

While we do appreciate resteems and upvotes, they are NOT requirements. We want to encourage the best talent to this contest and some writers are understandingly unwilling to fill their blogs with contest spam.

There are NO requirements as far as tags and NO requirements to refer to this contest in your entry post, though all such references are, naturally, well appreciated.

The winning entry will be the one which the judges feel most effectively and powerfully evokes the visual prompt. This being my contest, I will break any ties which occur during judging.

Good luck!