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Got a 75-word story to tell? I've got a writing contest for you.

Over at LitPark, a McSweeney's writer reveals himself as the mysterious author who writes The Education of Oronte Churm. His interview features a short, short writing contest that we all should join:

"Write a creative nonfiction story or essay, 75 (seventy-five!) words or less, in which someone reveals something, is unmasked, or comes to a new understanding. (This is most of literature, by the way.) We call these 'little truths.'"

If you're looking for inspiration, check out Ed Champion's interview with novelist and short story writer Charles Baxter. Baxter has published some of the most elegant prose I've ever read, and he's well worth a listen.

Finally, Galleycat creates an Ultimate Blog list, following Sarah Boxer's book by the same title (a process lovingly detailed in this article). While we don't do too much rating around here, the list contains a whole bunch of useful writing resources.

And don't forget to check out Felicia Sullivan's Five Easy Questions interview as well. 

Okay. So maybe there's not one site that can do all those things, but that would be pretty sweet. Luckily I found four different sites where you can do all that and more...

Start by going to Reporterist, a brand new social networking site where someday (hopefully soon) journalists can network directly with editors for stories. (Thanks, OJR).

Then sign up for the L Magazine short fiction contest, where you can perform your stories as well as writing them. 

Then go to Litpark for a sprawling interview with the great minds behind Smith Magazine and the new Six-Word Memoir book they compiled. It's a surefire way to make new writing friends. 

Finally, go see Tony D'Souza read at the Sunday Salon in Brooklyn this Sunday evening. D'Souza is our special guest this week, demystifying book agents for us. The reading will be an intimate, writer-packed way to meet our guest.

Along with Susan Henderson, Litpark, and THREE HUNDRED OTHER BLOGS, I'd like to celebrate the work of a first-time novelist who just realized her dream today, after struggling with all the writing life problems that we discuss here.

Patry Francis wrote her novel The Liar's Diary with a dayjob and a family, finally publishing her book today. Go check it out and cheer her on for this major milestone.

Sadly, Francis is now battling cancer and the litblog community is coming together to celebrate and support her on this happy day. If you get a chance, visit her wonderful blog and keep Francis in your thoughts today--we all share in the struggle and the successes of our online writing community.

Here's the post at LitPark:

"[These] people traded hundreds of emails with me to put this together: Karen Dionne of Backspace, Jessica Keener of Agni and The Boston Globe, Dan Conaway of Writers House, and Alice Tasman of the Jean Naggar Literary Agency. What began as a personal gesture of caring for a friend became an astonishing show of community - writers helping writers; strangers helping strangers; and most surprising of all, editors, agents and publishers, who have no stake in this book, crossing 'party lines' to blog."

Nice will get you laughed at in the blogosphere. Nice won't score you a tell-all book deal. Nice gets a bad rap.

Nevertheless, I dig nice writers. People like Bruno Schulz or Susan Henderson get passed over because they have such quiet, kind writing voices. This week, in honor of Susan Henderson's fabulous book deal, it is Nice Week at her website.

Go check it out, it will cheer you up. Don't forget to answer her question, "say something nice about the person who posted right before you."

Here's my answer: Mark Bastable has the simplest, most readable Myspace page, more soothing than the hundreds of obnoxious, noisy pages that gum up my browser. Via his excellent page, I discovered his nice short story at Amarillo Bay--a stylish piece in love with the virtual worlds and twisty syntax of the Internet. Most of all, I like how he fixated on the phrase containing "nudist balloonists." That says a lot about a person.