Winner Parlays Contest Entries Into a Career

Selma Glasser likens contests to neon signs. “They leap out at me,” said the Toluca Lake woman.

And they pay off.

Glasser has won dozens of prizes, such as a mink coat, a car; vacations to Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Holland, Italy and France; a trip to Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel, a dinner date with comedian Sid Caesar, a videocassette recorder, a washing machine, an electric barbecue, clocks, cameras and a set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

What has brought her such prizes are 25- to 50-word essays that address a simple question in a contest usually sponsored by a manufacturer.

When she entered a baking company’s contest that asked why a Stella D’Oro cookie is like a trip to “the Continent,” her simple answer--”They both take dough”--won her a European vacation.

“Most of my stuff is written in a very light vein,” she said. “When a judge has 10,000 entries, it’s comic relief.”

Glasser has parlayed her knack for winning contests into a career. In 1980, she wrote “The Complete Guide to Prize Contests, Sweepstakes and How to Win Them,” which was published in hardback and paperback. She also teaches courses on contest winning at Everywoman’s Village and Los Angeles Valley College.

The philosophy Glasser shares with eager readers and students pivots on something she calls PEP--persistence, enthusiasm and positive thinking.

“Enthusiasm is 99% of the battle. If you have inborn talent, fine, but you have to be rooted in this direction.”

Talking with Glasser is like sailing on a surging sea.

Memorable Aspect

She launches into lengthy anecdotes to answer questions. Asked about her appearance on the “Today” show, she mentions Jane Pauley, then moves on quickly to the far more memorable aspect of the event.

“My daughter lived with me at the time and I said, ‘Oh my God, I go out dressed to the teeth and a chauffeur is waiting! What do you think the neighbors will think?’ She said, ‘They will think you’re a high-priced call girl.’ ”

A contest sponsored by the Dutch government asked contestants why they wanted to visit the Netherlands. Instead of expounding on tulips, windmills or chocolate, Glasser wrote a poem. It ended: “I don’t really do much. It’s time I got in Dutch.”

From contest entering, Glasser went on to writing fillers and verse for Reader’s Digest and the Saturday Evening Post and, occasionally, jokes for Playboy, which, she pointed out, weren’t “dirty or anything.”

In 1971, with two children to support, Glasser was widowed.

‘Keep Up Morale’

“I lost my husband very suddenly,” she said. “I had to keep up my morale. I started to write in the middle of the night, instead of tearing my hair out.”

She wrote a serious op-ed article for the San Francisco Examiner titled “Widowhood: The Loneliest State in the Non-Union.”

During this period, she also developed the course “Writing for Prize and Publication,” which she taught for several years at Brooklyn College. “It was my therapy,” she said.

“I started as a little old contestant, winning a trip to the Catskill Mountains, which has led to other things,” she said. “I have won the car and the trips and the gas heat in my home and dates with celebrities, and that you can’t buy for money. But from that emerged the desire to really write.”

In her writing, Glasser likes to use puns, malapropisms (a greeting card for a new baby read: “Congrats on your newlywet”) and, occasionally, verse. She also likes to play with parodies and neologisms, such as calling a weather forecaster who predicts wrongly a “weather flawcaster.”

Glasser eschews sweepstakes, which are edging out some writing contests, “because you have to put in volume.”

‘Better Chances’

“You better your chances by writing,” she said.

Some of Glasser’s advice seems fairly obvious. The first thing she tells her students is: “Be alert.” She tells them where to find entry blanks, exhorts them to follow rules on word count and whether entries must be typed or handwritten, and warns them to see if the entry must be received or postmarked by its deadline.

She finds contests by checking free TV guides at supermarket checkouts, listening to the radio and leafing through newspapers and magazines.

She reminded the students to buy the manufacturer’s product when required; doing it may pay off. “I bought a $10 talcum powder and won a $3,000 mink coat,” she said.

But, lest they think she always wins, she revealed that in a contest sponsored by a rubbing alcohol company, her student won first prize--a trip to Spain.

The teacher, though, won second prize.

Annual Convention

These days, Glasser is gearing up for the annual California State Contesters Assn. convention Friday through Sunday in Redondo Beach.

She views writing entries as a hobby and compares it to playing tennis or chess. “It’s a real diversion,” she said. “And it was my therapy after I lost my husband; it saved my sanity.”

She recommends contest entering as a pastime without age barriers. “I have a friend who is 82 who enters contests,” Glasser said. “She could talk her way into a Rolls-Royce.”

As for herself, “I will go for a contest that gives me a trip to Redondo Beach,” she said jokingly.