Best First Sentence Contest

To enter the 2024 Best First sentence contest, please email your submissions to BestFirstSentence@gmail.com by May 1st. You may only submit one entry. To qualify for entry you must be an ITW member or registered for ThrillerFest XIX (2024). Winners will be announced on Wednesday, May 29th, 2024 at the CraftFest Luncheon and on social media. All winners will be notified shortly thereafter via email.

Thanks for your entry and good luck!

Scroll down to read the winners of the 2023 Best First Sentence contest.

2023 BEST FIRST SENTENCE WINNERS

J.D. Barker:

Hokum McGee was drinking straight from the bottle now, and it wasn’t making him any nicer.

—Gary Goldstein

Allison Brennan:

Names and places have been changed to protect the guilty, but the innocent will just have to fend for themselves.

—Ralph Walker

Meg Gardiner:

I turned twelve and wanted a theme park so we toured Alcatraz, the Old Man saying, “the theme, kid, is don't get caught.”

—Ken MacQueen

Steven James

There were two things Lina Rubis knew for sure: one, she wanted to be like her older sister Hope (well, not exactly like Hope, because Hope was dead), and two: she was in the trunk of a speeding car.

—Yvonne Walus

Mary Kubica:

It took a lifetime to plan her death.

—Rob Samborn

Don Maass

Her life was like a slot machine, always giving her less than she put in.

—Ifeanyi Esimai

Clare Mackintosh:

Quinn’s family always joked about death, but that summer, death stopped being funny.

—Saralyn Richard

Hank Phillipi Ryan:

Alex Mann pulled the heavy coat collar around his ears and once again cursed his government for not being in a cold war with Jamaica.

—Alan McDermott

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