LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST: It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Laura Sullivan in for Guy Raz. We're a little more than 24 hours away from the deadline for Round 8 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest.</s>LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST: If you still want to submit your story, you've got until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday, March 25th - that's tomorrow, folks. Almost 3,500 stories have already poured in since Round 8 opened two weeks ago, and our judge, the novelist Luis Alberto Urrea, is ready to plow through them. The challenge this round, your story must start with the sentence: She closed the book, placed it on the table and finally decided to walk through the door. And of course, your story must be 600 words or less.</s>LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST: So whether you use pen and paper, a keyboard, napkin notes or your smartphone, you've got a little over a day left to send in your story for Round 8 of Three-Minute Fiction. To submit your story and to read all the rules, visit npr.org/threeminutefiction. Good luck.
In Round 8 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest, listeners were given this challenge: Begin a story with this sentence: "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door." And, as always, the story must be 600 words or less. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET Sunday.