GUY RAZ, Host: Round six of our Three-Minute Fiction contest is now open here on weekends on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. And this time around, our judge novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says one character has to tell a joke and one has to cry, and it's not an easy challenge, she admits.</s>CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: I actually do not have any decent jokes.</s>CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: I - I've just never been very good at the - sort of the art of joke-telling. And I also find that I really don't enjoy the sort of obvious, you know, knock-knock-knock jokes. I find them quite annoying.</s>CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: But I wonder if you have any jokes, Guy.</s>GUY RAZ, Host: That's a good question. Let me think about this one for a moment. Okay, I got one. A horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks him, why the long face?</s>CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: Ha, ha, ha.</s>GUY RAZ, Host: As you can see, I don't stand a chance this round. But you do. To submit your story, go to our website, npr.org/threeminutefiction, and that's all spelled out, no spaces.
It's Three Minute Fiction on All Things Considered with judge novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. For this round, one character must tell a joke and one character must cry. The deadline is Sunday, Jan. 23, at 11:59 p.m. EST. Remember, your story must be 600 words or fewer.