I put up a post in historical genre (now stickied) on upcoming writing contests through the end of 2009. These seem to be pretty much open contests, not limited by genre. One of them ending November 30 has to have alley cats or alley rats in the title and I immediately thought of all of you in this forum (don't know if real animals are really what they mean but ...) Anyway, if you're at all interested in contests, check out the thread. Puma