Short Story Contest Fun Facts

We thought we'd share some more fun facts about the entries we received for our high school student short story contest. Our judges are hard at work winnowing down from 114 entries to the 10 finalists. As they read the entries, they're noticing some trends...

• 43% of stories referenced a mother who was dead or absent or made no mention of a mother while mentioning other relatives. (Does this mean there are a lot of high school students without mothers? Or just some wishful thinking by teens who are angry with their parents? Not sure...)
  
• 25% referenced a dead or absent father
• 18% included an angry or stoic father (Yet we didn't see many -- if any -- angry or stoic mothers.)
• 23% of the stories that began with the "Don't open the box..." line included a reference to Pandora from Greek mythology.
• 2% of all the stories mentioned Taylor Swift. (How exciting that Greek mythology beat out pop culture... of course, a "Don't open the box" opening line might have tipped the scales in Pandora's favor.)

Stay tuned here to read the 10 finalists...