#317 Across Time and Space with Laurie Chittenden

This week, we're running a takeover in collaboration with Reedsy freelancer Laurie Chittenden! The winner of this contest will not only be awarded $250 — they’ll also receive a special bonus prize: personal feedback from Laurie herself. For your chance to get insight from one of Reedsy’s very own professionals, read on! Here's Laurie:

Hello, writers! I'm Laurie Chittenden — an editor who spent over twenty years as an Executive Editor acquiring and editing both fiction and nonfiction at Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan. Now, I work with self-published authors, authors publishing with hybrid presses, and writers seeking an agent for trade publication.

I love helping writers discover their stories and tell them in compelling ways to reach a wide readership. And having taught editing in NYU’s graduate publishing program, I also enjoy educating writers about the business side of publishing, including how best to position their book and themselves. While I haven’t time-traveled myself, authors have taken me to other times and places through their stories — and isn’t that the magic of books?!

Whether it’s to reconnect with a lost love, become part of history, right a wrong, or issue a warning, time travel has fascinated writers and artists of all genres for centuries. It’s your turn now. This week, let’s write stories inspired by the past, present, and future. Where will your characters take you?

Special Update: The Results 🏆

Laurie's top pick for her takeover was "A Doorway on Lenox" by Ovett Chapman. Here's what she had to say about it:

A magical encounter between two gifted artists leads to a deeply personal and rewarding past and present for the main character of Ovett Chapman’s powerful, heartfelt tale. From the evocative music to the neighborhood and family history, to what landing on that perfect sentence means to a writer, authenticity fills every crevice of Chapman’s story. I found myself transported as we travel from the academic to the passionate, reminded of how creativity can transform not just an individual but also a long line of individuals.

Here, the gift an author gives to the world is so beautifully captured:

He leaned in slightly, his next words quiet, as if asking permission. “Can I give you one line?”

“Only one, huh.”

Theo wrote: You cannot name the stars unless you’ve walked beneath their heat.

His gaze lingered on the words. His lips parted, and released a breath so slow it seemed to carry something out of him.

“Damn. That kind of line could make a man immortal.”

Theo shrugged. “It’s yours.”

“Hell it is,” Elias said. “A line like that don’t belong to one man…”

“A Doorway on Lenox” left me, like the story's main character, Theo, filled with hope. In many ways, it is the perfect reflection of what this contest has proven: the future is filled with great writing to be discovered.

Congratulations to contest winner Ovett Chapman and the runners-up, Alexander Colfer and Theodoric Weicksel!