NPR logo
Minor Details: Three-Minute Fiction's Age Rules
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/148825826/148831057" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Minor Details: Three-Minute Fiction's Age Rules

GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

(SOUNDBITE OF CLOCK TICKING)

RAZ: Round 8 of Three-Minute Fiction is underway. You can enter the contest and find out all about it by going to our website, npr.org/threeminutefiction. Three-Minute Fiction is all spelled out, no spaces. We've already received 1,000 stories, and this past week, we got a letter in our inbox from Kahlo Smith, and this is what she wrote.

KAHLO SMITH: (Reading) I am 11 years old. I wanted to enter Round 8 of the Three-Minute Fiction contest. I have a story that fits all the guidelines. It's less than 600 words and begins with the sentence: She closed the book, placed it on the table and finally decided to walk out the door. But when I checked the entry rules, it said that the contest was open to people 18 or older. Is there a reason for this?

RAZ: Well, it turns out there is a reason for this. And we called NPR's general counsel, our top lawyer, Joyce Slocum, to come here to the studio to explain why. Joyce, why can't Kahlo enter this competition?

JOYCE SLOCUM: The short hand is that minor children do not have the capacity to enter into contract. A child who enters into a contract may have the ability to have it voided by a court, even after they become an adult.

RAZ: And entering Three-Minute Fiction is entering a contract?

SLOCUM: Yes.

RAZ: Really?

SLOCUM: The contract is offer and acceptance and consideration.

RAZ: Now, NPR doesn't make these rules, right? This is the government.

SLOCUM: Well, we make the sweepstakes rules. The states make the rules about what minor children can and can't do.

RAZ: So why do we have to say 18 or over?

SLOCUM: Because once they enter the contest, we can take their copyrighted work and use it for our own purposes.

RAZ: OK. But if I, like, buy a box of Fruity Pebbles, and I'm not 18, and I can enter their sweepstakes.

SLOCUM: Usually, all they have is you send in your name and then they draw a winner. They're not asking anything from you in return. And when you think about it, you know, when we get these Three-Minute Fiction stories in, they don't just appear briefly on the radio program and then disappear. We want to keep these available to people for a very long time.

RAZ: Could we put Three-Minute Fiction on a box of Fruity Pebbles?

SLOCUM: Well, if you didn't want an agreement to continue to use copyrighted work, you could.

RAZ: OK. So bottom line, Kahlo is out of luck. She cannot enter this competition.

SLOCUM: Sorry.

RAZ: Joyce, thanks.

SLOCUM: You're very welcome.

RAZ: You break my heart.

SLOCUM: It breaks my own heart.

RAZ: All right. Well, now that our lawyer has left the room, Kahlo, are you there? Are you with us?

SMITH: Yes, I'm here.

RAZ: We got Kahlo Smith on the line because we received your story, and it was so good that we could not, we just couldn't bear the thought of shutting you out. And it turns out you cannot enter this competition. You heard what Joyce said. Do you - what are your thoughts? Do you understand?

SMITH: Well, I understand that it's a legal thing that minors cannot enter the competition, but it seems unfair.

RAZ: How long did it take you to write this story?

SMITH: Actually, I'm not understanding what everyone finds so great about this. For me, it's a story that I wrote in half an hour.

RAZ: Half an hour. Actually, that proves that Three-Minute Fiction can be done by anybody. How did you hear about the contest?

SMITH: My mom was listening to NPR, and she heard about the contest. And she knows that I like writing, so she told me I should enter.

RAZ: Are you a pretty regular NPR listener?

SMITH: Well, my parents are, so I end up listening to it a lot.

RAZ: Do you like it? Do you enjoy listening to NPR?

SMITH: Well, sometimes it can be a bit boring. I am not an adult, so I do not usually listen to radio stuff that involves so much talking. I'm like, where's the music station on this thing? But usually, I like it.

RAZ: And do you write a lot of short stories?

SMITH: Well, the one that my dad and mom probably remember best is when I was little I wrote a story about a turtle who gets sent to, like, this shelter for sea animals because it got caught in a plastic bag and then is released at the end of the story. But other than that, they're mostly school assignments, which I do, though, write by myself.

RAZ: Well, Kahlo, I am sorry that you cannot officially enter. I think it's unfair. But, you know, that's the rule. The rules are rules are rules. But here's what we're going to do: we called Luis Alberto Urrea, our judge this round. He is going to send you a signed copy of his book, and we're also going to send you some NPR stuff. And we're going to post your story online as well. So not so bad, right?

SMITH: Yeah. I was actually thinking that even if I did enter the contest, it'd probably be like, I'd get one of those automatic reply emails: Your story has been read by the judges, though you did not win, and thank you for entering the contest.

RAZ: Well, Kahlo may not be able to enter officially, but if you are over 18, you still can. You've got until the 25th of March, that's Sunday, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Go to our website, npr.org/threeminutefiction. Three-Minute Fiction is all spelled out. Every story has to be 600 words or less. It has to begin with the exact sentence: She closed the book, placed it on the table and finally decided to walk through the door. Kahlo Smith joined us from member station KUSD in Santa Cruz. Kahlo, I'm sorry that you couldn't officially enter. But, you know, hey, this isn't so bad, right?

SMITH: Yeah. It's sort of like I won. I still get the stuff, my story still gets read. I'm pretty happy.

RAZ: Thanks for being a good sport.

SMITH: Thank you.

RAZ: And without further ado, here is an excerpt from Kahlo's story, "Night Bust," as read by NPR's Susan Stamberg.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE: (Reading) It was chilly outside, and she hugged her thin turtleneck sweater closer to her. She glanced up. The first stars were appearing, dotting the night sky with pinpricks of light, like holes in the black blanket draped over some chairs that had served as her magical fort as a child. She pushed her glasses up, looked around and started down the street. She looked young, too young to be walking the streets at night. No more than 16, a passerby might have thought, had they paid attention to this young girl, walking down the sidewalk alone, arms crossed tightly across her torso, head down.

Cars whizzed by, dark, fast moving shapes, stirring up her long brown hair. She breathed in the winter air, cold and clear in her lungs. She glanced in the window of a coffee shop as she passed it, the warm, bright place contrasting sharply with the cold and dark that surrounded her.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Comments

 

Please keep your community civil. All comments must follow the NPR.org Community rules and terms of use, and will be moderated prior to posting. NPR reserves the right to use the comments we receive, in whole or in part, and to use the commenter's name and location, in any medium. See also the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Community FAQ.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=148825826
www.npr.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-18
82813
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:FTI5KWRKSAZJQZAPJRDQSWWTUYDT7CS5
<urn:uuid:44c0dc11-8a2e-4d88-97ff-61691c3d8fc7>
2016-04-29T16:18:47Z
23.15.7.99
sha1:PMTVEDUAWYPVOH2OYGA6SSJR7Q4PQJ4K
<urn:uuid:05fa34fe-6773-44b7-b2c9-e82a13abee61>
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=148825826
response
<urn:uuid:c10ca694-8f61-4d10-986c-30bff44ba264>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-18
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf