We're nearing the deadline for reader and editor nominations for the 2008 Million Writers Award for best online short story. Remember, nominations need to be submitted by the end of the day on March 31st. Editor nominations can be made here, while reader nominations go on this page. As always, a big thanks goes to the Edit Red Writing Community for sponsoring the contest, which means there is a $300 prize for the overall winner.
Editor nominations for best online short story of the year
The Million Writers Award for best online short story is almost halfway through its March nominating period. Of particular interest at this point are the large number of editors from online magazines and journals who have nominated stories. The complete list can be seen here. While there are way too many magazines there to list everyone, a sample of the nominating publications include Identity Theory, HOBART, Thieves Jargon, The Mississippi Review, Eclectica Magazine, ChiZine, Clarkesworld Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and Farrago's Wainscot. Editors wishing to add nominations have until March 31st to do so. Readers wishing to nominate a single story should do so on this page.
Million Writers Award update
The Million Writers Award nomination process appears to be going well, with a large number of reader and editor nominations coming in over the last few days. In fact, the only problem I've seen is the attempt by certain people to stuff the reader nomination box with the story "The First Fire" by David Andrew Stoler (originally published in Carve Magazine.) Please stop doing this. The story has already been nominated by several readers and was one of the three official nominations by Matthew Limpede, editor of Carve Magazine. Nominating a particular story over and over doesn't gain anyone anything--aside from making me irritated at having to spend time deleting all the redundant nominations.
Million Writers Award and SF/F stories
Now that the 2008 Million Writers Award for best online short story is open for nominations, I wanted to touch on the subject of a recent e-mail I received: Why have science fiction or fantasy stories won the award for the last two years? Specifically, this e-mailer wanted to know if I was biased toward SF/F, and as a result had biased the award toward SF/F since that is the genre I write in.
As background, let's review the overall Million Writers Award winners for the last four years. These winners are "You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas" by Randa Jarrar from Eyeshot magazine (2004 award), "Toggling the Switch" by Alicia Gifford from Narrative Magazine (2005 award), "There's a Hole in the City" by Richard Bowes from SCIFICTION (2006 award), and "Urchins, While Swimming" by Catherynne M. Valente from Clarkesword Magazine (2007 award). That means half the overall winners, and the last two winners, have been writers of SF/F stories. So at first glance the e-mailer seems to have a point.
However, in my defense I should point out that the award's overall winner is based on a public vote. As a result, it's not possible for me to pick that winner. In addition anyone looking at each year's top ten stories will see a broad array of stories, authors, and genres represented. Finally, a few months back Scott Boyan completed a wonderful meta-analysis of the Million Writers Award. Basically, Scott crunched the numbers from the first four years of the award to see which online magazines placed the most stories in the notable and top ten listings. According to his analysis, Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld Magazine came in with a #9 and 11 ranking respectively. This indicates that while SF/F stories are well represented in the Million Writer Award, they are not all dominating.
I believe the reason SF/F stories have won the two most recent awards is because those two stories resonated with readers. One of the award's goals is to showcase top writing across genres; to show that great literature is not bound by genre conventions. As a writer and reader, I love all types of writing. I edit a journal of Southern literature. I read stories from every genre. I write science fiction and fantasy stories, along with so-called "literary" stories. So in response to this e-mailer's question, the award is not biased toward SF/F. But unlike most literary awards, the Million Writers Award allows all genres to compete against each other. In the end the best story wins, no matter what genre it's in.
2008 Million Writers Award now open
The 2008 Million Writers Award for best online short story is now open for nominations from editors and readers. Once again, the Edit Red Writing Community is sponsoring the contest, which means there is a $300 prize for the overall winner. For those who don't feel like wading through the rules, here's the award process in a nutshell:
- Any story published during 2007 in an online magazine journal is eligible. The caveats are that said online mag or journal must have an editorial process--meaning no self-published stories--and the story must be at least a 1,000 words in length. Readers may nominate one story for the award. Editors of online publications may nominate up to three stories from their publication. All nominations are due by March 31.
- A group of volunteer preliminary editors will go through the nominated stories--along with other stories that catch their interest--and select their favorites. These will become the Million Writers Award notable stories of the year. I will then go through all the notable stories and pick the top ten stories of the year. The general public will then vote on those ten stories, with the overall winner receiving the award and cash prize.
Complete information on all this, along with links to where people can nominate stories, is available on the award website. I hope people enjoy this year's award process.
Million Writers Award almost here
storySouth's Million Writers Award will be up and running in about a week. I have the preliminary judges all lined up, but a few website programming issues are holding us up. This will be the fifth annual award and it promises to be bigger than ever. For those who don't know, this is an annual award for the best short story published online. The award has previously been highlighted by USA Today, the Utne Reader, and was the subject of a feature interview in Novel and Short Story Writer's Market.