Join us for a Live Reveal of this year's Matchbook Story Contest winner! We'll also be doing a dramatic reading of some of this year's best runners-up and we'll hear from past winners how the Library has impacted their life plus surprises and special guests TBA. 

This year's show will be broadcast live from the San Diego Central Library @ Joan Λ Irwin Jacobs Common.

Calling all writers! San Diego's Shortest (and Quirkiest) Short Story Contest is celebrating its 6th year in style with the virtual return of San Diego's shortest awards gala!

The Library Shop's 6th Annual Matchbook Story contest started as an oddball challenge to fit a short story inside a book of matches and has grown into one of the Library Shop’s most popular programs and Library patrons and Shop customers have collected each year’s limited edition matchbook. Every year, the winner receives a $50 Library Shop gift card and their story is printed on 2,000 matchbooks available for purchase at the Library Shop, published in the Library Connections e-newsletter and installed as part of the Tiny Book Display in the Hervey Family Rare Book Room at the San Diego Central Library.

Submissions to the Matchbook Story Contest will be accepted until Nov. 15 online at www.libraryshopsd.org/shortstory. 

It costs $5 to enter and all proceeds support the San Diego Public Library System. NOTE: This year, in celebration of Library Foundation SD's 20th year supporting the San Diego Public Library System each entry will quadruple its impact thanks to a generous $5,000 matching gift donation from longtime supporter and Foundation Trustee, Judith Wenker. In celebration of the Library Foundation SD’s 20th anniversary, participants’ entries will turn $5 into $20 to support the Library!

The Third Annual Shorties: A Virtual Awards Gala For the Matchbook Story Contest