Heartbreak: A Competition
The theme of classic tangos is heartbreak in its many forms: piercing pain, lingering sorrow, unrequited love, and innocence lost. Some tangos speak of the melancholic pleasure that comes from surviving heartbreak, and in tango, the paradox of feeling pain of past heartbreak simultaneously with new love is not unusual.
About the Competition
As Valentine’s Day approaches, write about your tale of heartbreak in between 100-200 words. You can also tape yourself telling the story in a 1-2 minute video. Restrain from a rant and using the guilty party’s real name. (Though it’s tempting) Use a pronoun or just an initial. He or she will know who they are. Craft your brief story with a beginning, a middle and an end. What did you learn from this? How did it change you? Looking back, was it the best thing that ever happened to you? Or did it stay the worst? Was there an ironic twist? A happy ending?
We will post the entries to the Tango Me Home Blog. Maria Finn will choose the 10 finalists. All finalists will receive a copy of her heartbreak memoir, “Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home” published by Algonquin Books February 9th, 2010. These will go to our panel of judges who will choose the winning story. This story will be arranged into a tango song by Marlan Barry. All rights to the song will be the property of the composer, but the winner will have his/her story of heartbreak immortalized into a work of art.
Contest runs January 28th – Feb. 28th, 2010.
All entries must be emailed no later than 5:00 PM PST on Sunday, February 28, 2010.
Click HERE to enter the Competition!
About the Judges
As the daughter of Ann Landers, she took up the family trade of dispensing advice for the lovelorn and confused for years as “Dear Prudence” in Slate.com and for NPR.In 2006, she left the Dear Prudence column to write as Dear Margo for Yahoo! News, and now is on-line at for Women on the Web and in 200 newspaper through creators.com.
As the author of “From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords” (Scribner, June 2009), Olsher knows how words and emotions intersect into puzzles for the mind and the heart. He spent much of the last thirty years in public radio reporting on the arts and culture for NPR News and as the creator and host of The Next Big Thing, where writers, musicians, and humorists collaborated.
David knows all about heartbreak, particularly of the adolescent sort. He founded Mortified after discovering a hilariously awful love letter he wrote in high school, and figuring he couldn’t be the only one with embarrassing adolescent writings to share with the world. Beginning in 2002 as a live stage show, Mortified has since expanded to nine cities (including Malmo, Sweden), a series of books, and a just-launched web series.
